THE VISITOR

Arena

Neo-Prog

4.09 | 767 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

evenless
Prog Reviewer

It's not for nothing that "The Visitor" is ARENA's best rated album on Prog Archives. This is probably their finest piece of work! A masterpiece of (neo) progressive rock? I would say YES!

It is also the last ARENA studio album on which Paul Wrightson is singing as from "Immortal?" Rob Sowden took his place. I must admit Rob Sowden's voice fits ARENA's music quite well, but my personal favour goes out to Paul Wrightson. What a magnificent voice he has!

About this concept album: the 1st track "A Crack In The Ice" immediately is one of my ARENA favourites. The track starts with a pumping bass line dooming up out of nothing. Then the lead guitar kicks in and we already know that what we have here is going to be an interesting album! Especially when hearing Paul Wrightson sing: wow! Many tempo changes make this track very interesting and emotional. Great one!

"Pins and Needles" is a nice short track and "Double Vision" has some great drumming and weird double voices in it: hence "Double Vision"? "Elea" is a short instrumental track gently flowing over in the masterpiece of this album: "The Hanging Tree". Sung with so much emotion: simply beautiful!

The next track "A State Of Grace" is a more up-tempo one. The lyrics are really nice too: "Don't look for comfort in this house of mine, don't ask for mercy at my image or my shrine. Don't seek forgiveness at this house of mine, don't build a temple here and wait for me to walk into the fire, the fire, the fire, the fire!"

Next track is a short instrumental one followed by "In The Wink Of An Eye" another nice composition. Two other good tracks follow and after that another instrumental. After this comes "Tears In The Rain" about a clown crying in the rain. What an emotional track, especially the haunting almost crying guitar solo is beautiful!

I can continue describing the last few tracks of "The Visitor", but hey, what's the point? This entire album is gold and if you aren't familiar with ARENA or PENDRAGON yet, this is the way to start! Definitely a > 4.5 stars rating.

evenless | 5/5 | 2007-1-15

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