HUNDRED YEAR FLOOD

"Magelan" is fortunately moving away from the metal sounds of their prior album but unfortunately they are (I mean the Gardner brothers) heading towards some more neo stuff which is not of the best.

The band released some very good songs out of their first two albums, but this one is just maintaining the scale. Even the thirty four minutes epic is not a gorgeous moment. Some good parts here and there (this is the minimum required) but no superb development as far as I'm concerned.

I quite enjoyed their music with their debut, but this album is very far to reach the same level. There are lots of blunders during the epic which can be divided into lots of short slices of music. The global result is just below average IMHHO. Loose and uninteresting, this very long song (which is NOT always a guarantee of quality) is not transporting myself to the high prog spheres.

To summarize my thought, this is only an average neo-prog album. I have never felt that "Magellan" belonged to the heavy-prog style. Maybe that one of these days, they will be moved from this category? "Magellan" tried to make it complex and failed here. They should better return to their basics and deliver good songs instead of this pitiful "epic" which lasts for almost thirty-five minutes!!!

I was really expecting much more from this album, not only because of their prior releases but the presence of excellent guests could have lead to better music. But I can't blame Levin nor Anderson for the average song writing here. The very much inspired "Kansas" closing number won't change anything to my judgement. Too metal oriented to be good to tell the truth.

Two stars. That's all folks!