ROBERT BERRY

Robert Berry is an odd character, in the liner notes he insists in reminding us of his relationships to proper prog (member of 3 = close relationship with ELP, his work with GTR and Steve Howe etc, he even includes a family tree showing all these links and more) but actually his music is plainly crossover. A very similar case to Trevor Rabin or Billy Sherwood.

The music we find here is not much different from 3, GTR, Asia or Trevor Rabin / Billy Sherwood-era Yes, AOR-oriented prog, easy-listening and melodic while still retaining a decent level of complexity and using several typical prog sound patches and motifs, it sounds good but it's far from outstanding when you think of it a bit in detail.

Robert's voice is good, no question about it, but it is not very personal and it does not save the whole thing.

The best songs for my taste are in the second half of the CD, with "The Blame", "The Otherside" and "Last Ride Into The Sun", the best song here, a great symphonic 10 min epic with many nods to ELP.

Robert Berry's Pilgrimage to a Point is in my collection for a very long time now (since it's release I believe) and I always felt a bit sad Berry wasn't included in our site yet. Till recently when the crossover team decided to add him anyway, a rightful decision as far as I'm concerned. Because crossover is an excellent subgenre for this album (don't know any of his other works just yet). The booklet has a very handy schedule of Berry's musical history up until 1995. It shows his roots are especially in the typical eighties "prog"band Asia with slighter lines drawn towards ELP (Emerson and Palmer), Yes (Howe) and even a bit of Boston and Sammy Hagar there. And that's pretty much what you should think of if you want to know the musical style of Berry.

It's mainly Asia (No one else to blame, The Love we share, Freedom) that comes to mind when listening to this album added with some ELP (Another Man, Last Ride into the Sun) and even hints to Cairo (Shelter, The Blame) and a little bit of Toto (The Otherside). So that means a blend of prog and AOR roughly spoken. It's probably no coincidence that the longer tracks Shelter, The Blame and Last Ride into the Sun are the most progressive on this release. On two of these three Berry had the assistance of Carl Palmer concerning the songwriting. These three tracks justify Berry's presence here on PA where Pilgrimage is concerned. The other six added with the hidden track The Weapon is Love are more or less forgettable for the real proggers in our scene. And that is when the progressive content is concerned and not really the quality of music because the other six are also worthwhile.

In the end the only right outcome for me is three stars taking into account this is a progressive site. But it's rounded down, the right score is around 3,3 for me. Recommended for those who dig crossover prog and don't mind a bit of AOR flavour.

This was just a haphazard discovery from the library; it had 'progressive rock' description and it was classified in the electronic/ new age section, so it had a good chance of being interesting. The fact that it's a "soundtrack" for Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time fantasy series is not a recommendation for me, because I really couldn't care less of epic fantasy literature (Tolkien is the only name from the genre that I've read). But who knows, the music might be nice nevertheless, I thought. After one quick listening (and that's all I'm going to give it, except for re- listening to few better tracks for a possible inclusion in a compilation CD - you see, there just isn't time to re-listen everything that's not interesting in the first place, that's my principle with music) I can say that it was not up to my taste.

The music has no memorable melodies, and it feels as if it's not even properly composed, just worked together in the studio with images and plots of the fantasy story constantly in mind. I believe that multi-instrumentalist Robert Berry has captured very well the atmosphere of the series, and the dedicated reader of Jordan's fantasy may gladly use the CD as the background listening while reading, or memorizing the story in his mind. And it seems that's exactly what the "soundtrack for The Wheel of Time" stands for, as it is not a case of any film or TV series. The music is dark and cinematic, it has a sort of sinister feeling of a quest through dangerous landscapes (by this music I get a picture of the books themselves); happily there are no overblown battle sequences or other sorts of megalomanic drama, but as a whole the CD is quite tiresome and frustrating to listen to if you're not already familiar with the world it describes. It simply doesn't work as pure music on its own.

It's mostly instrumental, and neither of the featured vocalists (Andy Frazier and Lisa Bouchelle) are ones I would want to hear more. Mandolin on several tracks brings a folkish feeling. This is epic fantasy music all right (note that I use the word epic as an epitome to fantasy, not to music itself: the longest track is about five minutes). But I'd say it's only for the target audience, the fans of fantasy books and roleplaying games.