THE CROSS & THE CRUCIBLE

For those of you who love neo progressive rock, this album suits you. It has all components of typical neo prog music: melodic, some-time mellow and poppy, simple structure and compositions but it has changing tempos as well. And so is the case with this album. I knew the band long time when MARILLION was born, and I did not pay attention to the band with its album "Sentinel". At that time I was so amazed with Marillion so that I did not really follow the band. What I ever knew was that the band had a long vacuum period of more than 10 years.

I consider this album excellent and is still consistent in the vein of neo prog since the band inception even though the front man had changed to Alan Reed. Musically, they have been more mature especially with this album. The only problem that I got at first listening was a definitely long duration of silent music of first track "The Big Bang". I just don't get it! What the band is trying to achieve actually? I don't really know. I always skip first track; I can't wait. The title track "The Cross And The Crucible" has a silent period as well in the beginning (approx 1 minutes) with no value at all. But when it has passed 1 minutes and it enters to the body of the music .BOOM! Such a wonderful track! It's atmospheric and melodic; and I tend to put my amplifier volume loud when listening to this track.

The third track "For The Greater Glory" has a boring part the beginning of the song; it's so simplistic melody, I think. It seems more poppy than prog. Luckily, as the time passes, the music grows to a more complex composition with sort of inclusion of world music in the middle of the track. It reminds me to Peter Gabriel's music. "Who's To Blame" is totally an ear candy prog music with a soft'n'nice acoustic guitar to open the track. The overall beat of this track is straight forward but it's enjoyable.

"The Blinding Darkness Of Science" is a great track with an ambient music in its intro (but it's not as boring as "Big Bang" - uuugh .. I hate this track!) . The intro really helps setting up the tune of the track as when the music flows with all instruments are played, the transition is really nice. I like the guitar riff at background (similar to the kind of Mike Holme's of IQ style of guitar play). I love this track as it's melodic, simple and memorable. The interlude with guitar solo is stunning.

"Towers Of Babble" is another great track with (again) acoustic guitar intro. It has a nice choirs arrangement and classical music touch in the middle of the track and some little influence of Pink Floyd style. It's an atmospheric track, stunning solo keyboard / organ. The keyboard solo reminds me to Rick Wakeman, played in a simple form. It's really nice.

Recommended. It has strong songwriting, excellent musicianship without having to demonstrate how skillful each member is, excellent melody. Sonic production is excellent. I enjoy playing the CD loudly. Rating 4/5. Gatot Widayanto, Indonesia.