THE GIFT OF AWARENESS

Recently, the same as other reviewers in Prog Archives were and maybe still are, I was asked (in my case, by Dennis Matzat, the drummer of this band) to listen to this album. I agreed to listen to this album and to write a review about it.

As the information that was sent to me about the band says, the band considers their music as part of the Progressive Metal-Rock musical style. I have to say that I don`t listen to this musical style very often. In fact, I have listened to bands of this musical style (like DREAM THEATER, for example) a very few times. So, maybe I was not the right choice as a reviewer to be asked to listen and to write a review about this album. Anyway, I decided to listen to this album and to write a review about it.

The history of this German band from Hamburg says that it was formed in 2002. Initially, they were a quintet, but with the passing of time the band became a trio, and unfortunately their guitarist (to whom this album is dedicated, and who also appears on one track singing lead vocals and playing guitar) became ill some years ago and finally died early in this year. But despite all these problems, they finally released their first album this year, now as a duo (which consists of drummer-percussionist Dennis Matzat and keyboard player-guitarist- bassist-singer Sebastian Rudolph), with the assistance from some friends (a female singer, Lisa-Marie Rothe, who also contributed to the cover design), some guitarists who played some acoustic guitars in some tracks, and with the contributions of a former member (Michael Klein, who wrote all the lyrics and also sang lead vocals on one track). The album was recorded between 2010 and 2014.

The album has several musical moods, but I have to say that a as whole it obviously tends more to the Progressive Metal-Rock musical style. It has some very elaborated musical parts, and the very often use of distorted heavy guitars, which is a very characteristic thing in this musical style, of course. But the main instruments are the drums and the keyboards. The drum parts, which sound to me more like being played in an electronic drum kit, as one of the photos of the booklet shows, also have some complicated patterns, very Progressive in style. The keyboard parts are very good too, with good symphonic arrangements, sometimes using more the sound of violins or strings, sometimes using some mellotron samples, and also some very good piano parts. The violin sounds remembered me a bit of KANSAS in some way. Also there are some good keyboard solos, with some of them sounding like being played using an analog synthesizer, but maybe I am wrong.

The lead vocals are mostly a combination of female and male vocals, which sound very well to me. I don`t know if the album as a whole has a concept represented in the lyrics. But I read them in the booklet, and I think that maybe the concept of this album, as long as I could understand it in the meaning of the lyrics as a whole, is about the problems in human interactions, with the usual problems in communication which go from selfishness and power conflicts to an awareness that human interactions could be better if there is less selfishness and more interest in the well being and in the good interactions with the other persons. Maybe I am wrong, but that was the message that I could understand while I was reading the lyrics. Maybe this concept is more clear in the main song in this album, the long title song.

The recording and mixing is very good, very professional, despite the band considers it in the booklet notes to be more like a 'home recording' in style.

As a whole, I think that this album is very good. It really shows why it took to them four years to record it. It seems to me that the band finally released it until they were very happy about it.

I liked very much the cover and booklet design and photos. (Photos by Robin Halioua).