PURITY AND DESPAIR

This is ELEGANT SIMPLICITY's 10th album and it's all instrumental. The 8 pages CD-booklet contains many fantastic coloured pictures made by the multi-instrumentalist Steven McCabe, who also has composed and arranged all the songs. Each page contains a collection of pictures on the theme that represents the mood in each song.

The album contains music that is a mix of romantic, melodic heavy rock, progressive rock, symphonic rock, fusion, folk, jazz and orchestral themes that are going through constant changes. This is also a little step forward from the 1997 years album "Reversal Of Time", even though it's a little too poppy for this genre. The influences you can hear are CAMEL, ELP, IQ, JETHRO TULL, KITARO, Mike OLDFIELD, Anthony PHILLIPS and Rick WAKEMAN. Steven McCabe is no guitar virtuoso, but he has a very beautiful way of playing and he is doing some great solos. The drummer though is a little bit lame in his playing. Unfortunately this is affecting the overall impression of the album in a negative way. Still this is a very good album that is growing maturer with every listening. It not a radio friendly album considering the songs and the length of every track.

The best tracks are "Tranquility And Drift" and "Aching Desire". Listen to ELEGANT SIMPLICITY...!