NEBULA

In the nineties Egdon Heath was my favourite native band. I saw them live three times in those days and had a great time at their gigs. They made 4 pretty different albums all in all and somehow this fourth and last is my least fav. And that's a bit surprising because to many people this is Egdon Heath's best release. Let's see where my dislike comes from.

Hail to your Heart is one of the best tracks and is both real progressive and true neo. A combination that's not very likely according to many but still I feel that way with this one. There is great melody and very original build up. Well combined here. 3,75*.

Next is Head in the Sand, one of the tracks that makes me feel the way I do about Nebula. Melody is far away suddenly except for a short keyboardsolo and I don't like the vocals either. 2,75*.

Peace of the Brave is one with equal debatable vocals and also the structure of this song is not what I usually like in neo. Bit strange this one. 2,5*.

Telepathic is one of the ballads of the album. The sound is a bit poor suddenly as if it was wrongly produced. Maybe it was deliberately, don't know. Also a bit of a strange song, you could call it very progressive as well. Very original at least ... 2,75*.

Buried Inside is another favourite of mine. Here the melody is much more present again. Both guitar and keyboards sound great, more of a straightforward neosong this one. Interesting orchestral contribution in the second half. 3,5*.

Little Human is one of the shorter songs and is another ballad-like song, good but non-essential so to speak. 3*.

As Ripley would say .... is the longest song of the album and actually an epic. If I compare this epic with the title track on Killing Silence it's really amazing what change the bands sound and style made. There is absolutely nothing that these tracks have in common. I absolutely love The Killing Silence but this one is except for a piano piece in the 8th minute almost dispensable for me. And it's really the same band though with some mutations in line-up. 3*.

Dead Meat is the other lengthy song, a bit more melody on this one but not much, same score. 3*.

In the end I even want to go that far that I feel this isn't even a true neo progressive effort. It's almost eclectic prog which is just about the counterpart of neo. Well, the least you can say is it's ineteresting, original and innovative, the eclectic features. But melodicwise, the real aim of neo in my perception, this is hardly worthwhile. And in my worst mood I even could have given this 2 stars but as anyone can see the average is around 3 so that's what it will be. I hardly ever play this album. I wonder why ....