LANDING IN A SERIOUS MIND

CAST are a mexican band and maybe the most creative one as they have released so far 16 studio albums in fourteen years (!!!) between 1994 and 2008...Creative?Well,listening to the their debut I doubt if this is the right word...It's like a band which wants to play prog but don't know how...The only things that worth in this album is the instrumental ''Athens'' (don't get excited,just an average symphonic prog instrumental track) and a couple of interesting guitar solos and keyboard/piano passages...As for the rest of the album,this is full of cheesy and dull ballad-like tracks and too weak vocals very much in the pop/AOR vein,that I can't listen to them over 3 times...

It's obvious that the band is influenced among others by GENESIS and neo prog in general but they don't know how to create symphonic arrangements...A couple of keyboard or guitar solos mean nothing to me,that ain't prog...Apart from the pop/rock sound this album suffers from really horrible production that makes the whole listening even more painful!...I really can't recommend this album to anyone,even for collectors of the band,as this one has not that much to do with good progressive rock,should be categorized perfectly as a AOR/melodic rock album...1 star only...