MINDSCAPERS

Now here is some pretty fine Neo prog which takes the time to create some nice symphonic breaths. What makes GALADRIEL work so well for me is clearly their song writing ability which offers wide open spaces within which to work. As you would expect, "Mindscapers" is loaded with symphonic atmospheres, forceful guitar solo's and solid drum/bass interplay. Vocals (Jesus Filardi) are pretty much a "love him or hate him" category delivering a mixture of spoken and sung parts. "Mindscapers" is very well recorded and sounds superb through your speakers with its wide dynamic range. This album also contains a fair amount of background effects and has been very carefully recorded and mixed. "Mindscapers" is a very enjoyable album and for the Neoprog lovers out there is a swell find.

Standing by for five years, the fans of this interesting ensemble from Spain have given their new welcome to those musicians who have replaced (except on Jesus Filardi, the mastermind and sole survivor) the early members of this controversial band in the late nineties...well I had already reviewed their second work "Chasing the Dragonfly" and pointed out some defects, despite of containing their first completely developed ideas (talking about the contamination between an ethnic and a symphonic style as well, this time more "floydian") equal to an improvement of their maturity!!

In fact this is finally a remarkable arrangement and a good production as well, by considering their concept about these "inhabitants" of our mind. Their good lyrics are interesting, but the problem is connected to a certain discontinuity, even though the simple harmonic solutions by the guitar are always pleasant and well performed!!

As usual for this band, this work is not essential but anyway very interesting!!

Third and last album for this Yes-oriented band (clone ?). It took them five years to release this album after "Chasing The Dragon". The band has also suffered severe restructure. Only the vocalist / keyboard player Filardi remains. But he the "voice" and inspirator of the band so not too many damage to be expected, I guess.

Like "Starcastle" I only appreciate moderately the work of "Galadriel". To me, this sort of bands are OK while they try to maintain a band alive and that does not exist any longer. Like some of Genesis influenced ones as "The Watch" for example. But to emulate a band while they still play together does not make a lot of sense to me.

"Galadriel" sounds more personal in this album. Even the voice will sound different during the opening number (but only in this one). But the listener will soon be reverted to the traditional Anderson-like signing style.

There will be some pleasant symphonic parts on this album like during the instrumental intro of "On The Verge Of A New World". At times, this album sounds a bit jazzy as well ("Soft As A Feather"). Very soft indeed... The epic track has some sci-fi influence. It features some sort of recitation of the "concept" (these are not really famous IMO). This piece of music is not bad but little happens during these sixteen minutes. Nice and melodic music and pleasant vocals.

In terms of compositions, a song like "Homeland" will lead nowhere. I really do not understand what was the purpose here. No unity, no real theme because it changes an awful lot of directions. I guess that the band doesn't know either.

The worse is reached with "Run For Colour". Noisy, heavy almost all the way through. The closing number is just a bad joke. Completely useless and stupid. This album is not very good. If ever you would need to get one album from this band, get "Chasing The Dragon".

I will rate this effort with two stars.