VISIONS FROM REALITIES

I wanted to let the world know that I just discovered a great prog gem! I like Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, Van Der Graaf, Jethro Tull... and all the Italian progressive music but "Visions From Realities" goes far beyond being modern, fresh and not a repetition of old clichés. "Visions From Realities" is a concept album and must be listened to from the beginning to the last songs to better understand the complete story behind the lines. I like the choice to have left less then usual time between a song and another one. It helps to follow better the mood of the music. It is like one of those films in which you arrive at the end of the screening without realizing that an hour and a half has passed.

'Flying Like A Fly' is a happy ballad with influences of early prog folk rock. It's a perfect intro to the story with that relaxing feeling typical of the good old days.

'Awake?!' expresses the positive mood of the main character of the story with references to neo-progressive of the 80's

'Now What?' and 'Me, Five Seconds Before' and two joint songs. They are fresh and together with 'With Joy' and 'Melting Of Realities' show the high quality of the musicians who participated to the album.

'Forest And Joy' I suppose it's a description of the love life between two persons who love each other (I didn't find the complete lyrics on the internet so I'm not 100% sure in this case) I very much appreciated the classic guitar solo at the end of the song.

'The Weakness Of Our Spinning' is a moment of calm, acoustic and soft. Lyrics tell about the weakness of life and our common destiny.

'Without Joy': the title says everything. They would not have been able to better express the sense of despair and rage for the loss of a person you love.

'Every Ten Seconds Before' is a five stars masterpiece built on 7 different parts perfectly integrated the ones on the others in a gradual growth of complexity.

'FFF Flashing Fast Forward' is a 7/8 rhythm song!

'If I Will Never Be' is a slowly growing song with a magnificent final in Yes style.

'Me, One Second Before Johan Robeck' immediately caught my curiosity. I searched for "Johan Robeck" on the Internet and found the reason for the referring to. It's an ironic song for clever and open minds perfectly in line with our times.

'Usual Plays In Heaven - Be Kind And Talk To Me' I think is probably the most "commercial" song of the album and could be a great success also in other genres of rock/melodic music.

'Our Vast Emptiness' begins with a super bass and finishes with a growing in volume and number of instruments played and at its very end, it repeats the first part of Flying Like A Fly (the first song of the album) giving an impression of a kind of loop of the entire album.

This album has nothing less in quality that the best album of the progressive music production. I also appreciated the quality of the sound in general compared with the other music I use to listen to from the Internet. I'm sure Active Heed is having great success with this album and found on their website that they are already working on the second. Looking forward to hear more songs then!