JOURNEY OF THE DUNADAN

First of all, this album loses point from me because of the subject matter. The Lord Of The Rings? Really? And for your debut album? I'm sorry, but playing into stereotypes doesn't win me over. And at that time, Tolkein's trilogy was just a series of nearly unreadable novels, and a pretty bad Ralph Bakshi cartoon. It took Peter Jackson to extract an epic story out of that jumbled narrative.

Then Evolver sang: I took a walk down by the moor Dum dee dum dum doo I found a CD in the store Dum dee dum dum doo

Other than the inspiration, the album itself is not too bad. While the LOTR story loses my interest, Glass Hammer plays passable prog here, let by some fine work by keyboardist Fred Schendel. I question his choice of synth patches at times, but his playing is certainly very good.

The better songs seem to be at the beginning and end of the album. The middle sections tend to get too pastoral and almost boring at times. But the thunder at either end makes up for it.