ABRAHAM - ONE ACT ROCK OPERA

A double album about Abraham's life was originally not the most thrilling experience I could have imagined. The music is mostly instrumental and I admit that the start of this work is very promising.

The first three numbers are bombastic, powerful and diverse (even fully neo-prog during What Rights Has My Soul but the quiet and piano oriented The Journey and If A Woman Is Like Wheat are too much on the sleepy side. This aspect is also to be noticed during Trembling Star which holds more of a classical piece of music. The piano is excellent, this is not the problem.

It is also a part during which vocals are very much musical oriented. I'm not a huge fan of this feature either: it is more opera-oriented than rock to my liking. I much prefer the guitar and mood from Night Lover's Silhouettes which also features some fine vocalizing.

An inherent part of choirs awaits you during Berit. It provides a solemn and very church oriented feeling of course. Some majesty as well. I quite like the moving Hospitality and the great and emotional guitar solo. One of my fave.

The second CD opens on a percussion track: Sodom is not the best out of this work. Noisy and loose, it leaves the listener rather perplexed (at least I feel so). Of course, this biblical theme is not the most joyful of all and it was probably difficult to have imagined another representation of this dark episode.

The longest song available on this album is also my favourite. Probably somewhat derivative (Genesis) but this guitar moment strongly reminds the great Firth Of Fifth. The delicacy of the piano only adds to the feeling and the synths part is fully Banks oriented. Did I say Genesis?

One could have thought that the Sacrifice would a lugubrious track; on the contrary it is pretty upbeat with soaring guitar and joyful vocals to finish. The interpretation of Abraham's Death is also a poignant moment of this work.

This is a short double album (ninety minutes). The band would maybe have been inspired in cutting a bit into it and reduce it to, let's say seventy minutes both to have it on the one CD format as well suppressing some less interesting parts (Journey, Sodom and Silver Bridge). As such, this is a good album. Three stars.