HUBI MEISEL

Hubi's second album from the Trilogy, named Kailash from 2006, but third from his solo career. As you might guessed this is another concept album , like the previous one about the Himalayas, Mount Kailash, Tibet and the secrets of ancient Buddhist/Hindu culture, so another intristing little stories behind this release. While the previous ralbum was outstanding both musicaly, lyrical and visualy, this one is not a step down at all from Emocean from 2004. Pieceas are from good to great again, Hubi meisel shines here on every single note he play and sing. He fits like a glove in this kind of prog metal, who by the way is not your typical prog metal thet you hear every day, is more towards hard rock with a lot of keys added and very strong guitar interplays. Again Maisel gathered aroud him a bunch of great musicians from prog metal, besides Marcel Coenen ,Lau and Daniel Flores, who were on previous album, he mange to bring another two great virtuosos Johan Niemann the bass player from Therion and Jorge Salán on guitar from Mago de Oz. So a line up who sure make envy many bands from today. Every single piece is a winner, from slow to more up beat instrumental passages, this Kailash is great album to listen and very strong lyrics as well. The musicianship is top notch not to mention Hubi Meise's voice, excellent and very strong is his range. The best pieces are all, maybe with a plus one opening track Potala Palace, Red Oracle and the longest one clocking around 11 minutes -Wheel Of Life. A good album to aquire if you are on this kind of music. Again the cover art and the inner sleeve is outstanding made. My version is in digi pack format with two bonus tracks and is available on LionMusic like the previous one Emocean. Maybe not as good as Emocean but worth investigate both albums who offerd a prog metal hard to forget these days. 4 stars for sure. Recommended, looking forward for the next and final release from the Trilogy.

Hubi Meisel is an underrated german musician but with all that he manages to create something really unique with this second album Emocean from 2004. He was the leading voice of another good prog metal band from Germany - Dreamscape - (have some colabotations as guest musicians on Book Of reflection (second album) among others) - after he leaves them in 2000 , he decided to go solo and gathered with him a bunch of great musicians from prog metal scene in last 10 years. The first truly important album for him is this first one from a Trilogy of concept albums namerd Emocean. The strory behind this album is maybe not very original, is bean talked a lot , specialy in metal zone, but is very well written and above all is outstending produce and played. The story is about the mysteries of deep oceans, the Bermuda triangle - that fascinates many musicians and aswell intriguing them in same time, Sargasso sea and about the famous story behind Atlantis. So, the concept is very well written by Hubi himself, with great lyrics and outstanding musicianship through out entire album. Now about the music and the musicians thet Hubi meisel gathered with him - the music is prog metal with mid tempo pieces, sometimes he is toying woth symphonic prog , but the main ingredient is prog metal. Excellent are the keys arrangements and the guitar chops, very smooth and elegant. The compositions are very well done, excellent musicians on this album like Vivien Lalu ( from Lalu, Shadrane) on keys who did a great job here, revealing once again how good and in same time how unnoticed musician he is, the virtuoso guitar player Marcel Coenen (from Sun Caged), the drums are played by one of the most intelligent drumers from prog metal , no one then Daniel Flores (from Mind's Eye), superb prestation of this great musician, and last but not least the bass lines are promoted by Jean B. Affonço a.k.a. Bamby - who goes hand in hand with the rest of the musicians delivering some very intristing bass lines. So, Emocean desearves from me full 5 star, everything is top notch on this album from music to art cover an inner sleeves, who by the way are really great and very well done - the author is Chris Kallis - who did an outstanding work here, the booklet is so well done and shows once again thet Hubi Meisel did a profesional work both musicaly and visualy. Emocean becomes one of my fav prog metal albums in last 10 years, excellent work, who is , very underrated and unnoticed, and desearve a better view. Try and convinced yourself how great this Hubi Meisel is by buying his CD in digipak format from Lion Music, aswell like his next album. Recommended.

Got this after seeing a gushing review on another site. This is prog metal with heavy doses of keys. The keyboardist wrote all of the music, while Hubi wrote all the vocals and produced. Meisel has a very good voice, although it is one of those that perhaps would turn off a few people. The vocals are clean throughout, not like where LaBrie will vary from clean to rough. And speaking of LaBrie, after several listens, you get a real Dream Theater vibe. There are two guitarists and they each play on certain songs, not together. They both are very good and hard to tell apart and they both channel Petrucci throughout. There are some very good solos on this disc.

I hate to dub it another DT clone, as I know that Meisel really poured himself into the project and the results are very good. It just is something that nags at you throughout without being a blatant ripoff at all. The production is pristine and everyone plays outstanding. I don't know that it is a concept album so much as theme based, with the songs being about Tibet and the Dali Llama and that part of the world. Kind of an exestential journey of thought that Meisel puts out there as kind of a "food for thought" without being preachy.

A solid 4. The songs are consistently above average but none of them really blow my doors off. An excellent addition.

Ok. First, I must say that I'm not very good to review CD's. I never really did that before but well, I'll try to do my best, here, because I really think "EmOcean" deserves to be discovered and appreciated by as many people as possible. It's one of the most wonderful prog. CD's I have in my collection and I sincerely hope that my comments will be useful to you...

I heard about this CD for the first time (and bought it) about one month ago and what I can say about it is that I really got impressed by the amount of work that was invested in this album ! It's a FANTASTIC album !!!!!! My favourite one, in fact ! I would qualify it in one word: magical. The concept idea is very deep, complex, meaningful, beautiful and interesting. It's related to "water worlds", "the above" and much more ! I let you discover it - this huge and marvellous story - by yourselves, as it really worth !!! It's like a whole big story that continues itself through the songs...This is like a dream...and you'd only wish to be there...If you close your eyes, you really can "feel", "see" even "smell" everything that happens in the album. You "fly" in that world...like in a fantastic movie...That's M-A-G-I- C !!! This perfect piece of work is very special, original, mystical, spiritual even relaxing, in some way ! This is the kind of album that makes your skin shivers to every note, every line, every sound. Also, the lyrics are so well written, the words so well chosen, this only adds more strength to the album because you can "see" clear images of every song in your mind...Hubi Meisel has such a way to describe things ! It's very easy to picture everything here... Of course, I like Hubi Meisel's voice very very much too !!! It sounds so sweet and he's able to make all the "changes" he wants with it. He plays with his voice very well, which I especially love. This album is musically and vocally incredible and will leave you wordless ! There are a lot of interesting variations through every song, for any aspect. I like the piano and keyboards very much, as there is a lot !!! The music is just amazing anyway !!! The album is simply "Emotional", haha. And the sound quality is quite impressive itself !

But honestly, it's very difficult to say which song is the best !!! ALL OF THEM are great equally - but for different reasons !! I tell you, EVERYTHING is great !!! Personally, if I had to tell you which are my 3 favourite songs, I'd choose:

1- "EmOcean" (so sweet, so beautiful, my favourite vocals, just made me cry...) 2- "The Souls of Atlantis" (great musical, vocal changes and much more !) 3- "Sapientia Vitae" (great music, meaning and more too !)

But REALLY, all of them are AS GOOD AS each other and deserve to be listened to !!! I recommend it to everyone !!! That's gonna make you see things in a way you never saw them before... Basically, "EmOcean" touched my heart and soul in a way I can't describe and that's now my favourite album.

In my opinion, Hubi Meisel and his musicians have done a "meticulous" job, here !!!! I just can't wait for the next album !!! I'm really trustful that it's gonna be quite "delightful" !!!

Well, I just have my opinion to go by because I'm the only one I know that has this truly wonderful CD. Hubi has some great musicians on here. Most notably guitarist Marcel Coenen and one of my favorite drummers Daniel Flores of Mind's Eye. And although I have not heard of the keyboardist "Vivien Lalu" he was an integral part of this project being that he wrote all the music ( Hubi did all the lyrics and vocal melodies). His keyboard playing is precise yet very fluid. As a matter of fact, the whole CD has a very smooth and flowing sound to it. EmOcean never gets grating or to aggressive, which is a good thing considering Hubi's high tenor range and the premise of the EmOcean story line (Water, Atlantis and Poseidon etc...) The music is very keyboard oriented and is as graceful as a dolphin cruising the oceans depths. As I listened to the song Dolphin's Wake for the 1st time I truly got the "picture" of riding one of these great animals through the waves and depths. I know that is a quite a corny thing to say but it is true. I also E-mailed Hubi and told the same. Only Symphony-X's The New Mythology Suite has grabbed me in and kept me interested after many, many spins in the CD player. I've had EmOcean for a year now and it has not lost any of it's original magic, quite the opposite actually, I'm impressed even more and cant wait for the next CD (Which is almost completed) All the songs are wonderful but the standout's are...Lost in the Water's of Sargasso, Dolphin's Wake, FantaSea and The Soul's of Atlantis. I have over 700 prog. rock/metal CDs and I can safely say that there are only 10 or so that I would give a perfect 5 star rating to. This is one of them Steve S.