ALBATROSS

A lot of people compare this band to Yes which is weird as it's pretty obvious they aren't Yes clones after listening to any song on here. You know who they do sound a lot like? ELP. These guys are straight up ELP clones, not Yes. The lead singer sings in a voice far from the angelic Anderson, rather sounding like Greg Lake, specifically on Brain Salad Surgery.

The Four Horsemen opens with soft keyboard then heads into some quick flourishes to show off other keyboards, pointless but ok. A brief vocal section comes in then a choir section then guitar reintroduces the vocals. Then a funky section happens while a different vocal part comes. Then a piano part with different vocals again which becomes a full band effort that takes the song to its close. This song is okay, it flows nicely between the four sections and never becomes an endless jam, it's fourteen minutes of music. Sadly the song is completely devoid of memorable melodies, everything sounds very samey, especially the singers lines. 3/5

Mr Natural opens with a stupid spoken word through vocal fx with screaming fans, terribly annoying. The actual song is alright, features a nice keyboard riff and the vocals are an improvement.

The Devils strumpet features a pipe organ opening then leads into some playing then vocals which are very meh. Sounding the same as the previous tracks a section of nananana over lively music is the highlight as I can't tell the rest of the song apart from the Four Horsemen. Then the mini suite ends with organ, an alright track.

Cannot Be Found is a piano and vocal duet. The vocals are mixed far to quiet causing the focus to be on the crystalline piano.

Humpback Whale sounds like track 1 and 3.

Overall an okay album, not bad but not good, average. A big issue is the songs almost all sound the same, courtesy of Novak's limited vocal abilities which are unfortunately brought to the front of every song. This music would perhaps be better with a more skilled vocalist. Additionally instrumentals are treated as little gimmicks, quickly being played then forgotten when they could have been expanded upon.

3/5