LEE ABRAHAM

Perhaps that isn't fair, the music is quite good, even if the production doesn't always support this. The drums seem a bit weak, or at least muffled throughout the album but this, again can be overlooked because there are some things this record does astonishingly well (vocals for example).

Lee Abraham, who isn't a bad vocalist himself, brings us some vocal help from Gary and Kristy and the vocal work, as well as compositions are quite delightful. On the whole, this isn't a bad record, in many ways it is quite good, tuneful with some fantastic vocals but it is also, forgettable and badly produced.

(3.5/5)

I first want to give a nod to the musicians playing on this cd, there are some big names helping out with this project and they all add a certain flair to this album. The musicianship here is truly excellent. This melody driven album seems to have 3 feet located in neo-prog, crossover prog and heavy prog with the occasional misstep landing it into the symphonic prog genre (though this is rare). What you have is a collection of fantastic tracks that flow seamlessly into one-another.

'And Speaking of Which...' doesn't do much for me but then again it is an intro track and flows nicely into the wonderful 'Face the Crowd', this song is much heavier then I anticipated and involves some wonderful performances from Sean Filkins (whose voice matches the music perfectly) and Lee Abraham with a fantastic nylon stringed guitar solo. This moves into my favorite track 'The Mirror' with fantastic vocals from Simon Godfrey and astonishing guitar from Simon Nixon, this song feels very neo-prog but works extremely well in the album, transcending synths and vocals make this a real treat.

Then we get 'Celebrity Status' which is a nice, if not terribly impressive song, I still enjoy it quite a bit! This moves into the fantastic track 'Black' which opens up in an impressive wall of sound that takes your breath away before relaxing into the soulful melody's that I've come to love from this album (with more fantastic singing from Sean Filkins. 'White' is a fair bit lighter than black (pun not intended) but once again gives us truly engaging music. It is perhaps a little too long for its own good but holds up well to finish up the album.

On the whole an extremely good record that should please most prog fans. (4.25/5)

Starting with the intro track Speaking of Which Lee put us on the wrong foot one might say. Sounding symphonic and rather tame it suddenly turns really rough with first real song Face the Crowd. This proves we could put mr.Abaraham in the heavy prog subgenre just as well. On the other hand the music sounds pretty accessible which warrants the crossover choice very much in fact. After several minutes the song calms down and the acoustic guitar shows us we're dealing with more than one style for sure, even within one song. After a few seconds the song explodes again to return in the original fashion. Next up is The Mirror, by far my favorite track and one that has managed to climb up my personal all time stand outs. So that indicates Abraham is obviously pretty much my cup of tea. And it's remarkable this third track is the clear winner knowing I'm an epic devotee and the last two tracks are two very long songs and also very good epics which means The Mirror has to be truly outstanding to beat those two. And so it is. It's a very good composition and has a great build up saving the best for last with a blistering guitar solo blowing my mind completely. I hope he will make more of these in the future.

The accompaning band of Lee Abraham features prog heroes like Gary Chandler (Jadis), John Mitchell (Arena, Frost* a.o.) Steve Thorne and Sean Filkins (Big Big Train a.o.) and fourth track Celebtrity Status is well lifted by Gary thanks to his great singing skills. The mentioned two epics finish the album off in superb style simply bringing me to one possible conclusion: Black and White is a great album, truly excellent in my book without doubt. The only slight warning I can think of is towards those who can only embrace the real progressive artists and albums. Lee Abraham is only semi-prog and therefore rightly placed in the crossover genre. This album is a mix of neo prog and heavy prog mostly and thus recommended to fans of those subgenres. Four stars is my verdict.