SEVEN SECRETS

Seven Secrets is the second studio album from Irish symphonic prog rock act Fruupp. Their debut was a pleasant and pretty good symphonic prog album, but I was never really excited about it and my overall impression with the album is that it´s pretty average for the genre. My impression with Seven Secrets is just about the same.

The music on Seven Secrets is very inspired by the big symphonic prog bands from the seventies and I think I hear a bit of Yes, ELP and lots of Genesis in Fruupp´s sound on Seven Secrets. I love this kind of music, but the problem with this genre, as it is with most genres, is that there are only a few excellent leaders and way too many imitators. I´ll say that Fruupp is an imitator. It´s not that their music is a Genesis clone or anything like that, but their sound is just not very personal. Let´s put it this way: When I listen to the music on Seven Secrets I´m not instantly reminded that it´s Fruupp I´m listening to. It could be just about any other seventies symphonic prog band playing.

The songs are generally very melodic and at times very classical music influenced ( listen to the beginning of Elizabeth). The vocals are not very exciting and doesn´t bring much to the music and I much prefer the instrumental parts. Wise as wisdom is my favorite with it´s mellow mood.

The musicianship is good, but again I have to point out that the vocals are not that well done and the vocal melodies are average at best. Fortunately the instrumental sections are worth investigating.

The production isn´t the best or most intriguing. The sound is average as the rest of the music.

I realize that my review hasn´t sounded very positive and I actually didn´t mean to sound this negative, because Seven Secrets is a good album, it just never reaches excellent in my book and therefore it deserves a 3 star rating. I liked the debut just a little more.