STILL SEARCHING

The second album of Arcansiel was released simultaneously with the first album in 1990 but still sounds great today. This is stuff for fans of Genesis with Peter Gabriel but there's also some pop influences. The music is gentle, romantic and delicate. It's almost unbelievable the duration of the opening track is more than 20 minutes. You'll hardly notice it, "I'm still searching" is full of mood swings and great melodies that stay in your head once you've heard it. The rhythms are quite original. Only the rhythms Saga uses on their first albums are comparable with this. Especially the keyboards are played in the staccato form. Some excerpts do sound a bit too technical but soon it changes into an emotional climax. Mark Kelly or Mike Oldfield comes to mind when hearing the creepy keyboard melodies on the first two tracks. "Your only treasure" is a nice ballad with great solos from guitar and saxophone towards the end. The sax seems to fit to the sound of Arcansiel perfectly, sometimes it seems John Helliwell is a member of this band. Every instrument is played very well, just listen to the great guitar solos and drum parts. Maybe the voice of Marco Galletti does sound a bit thin every now and then. A better mix could solve this. There's a jazz approach to the final track "empty pages" just before the melodies from the first track return to close the circle. When compared to the first album the production is a lot better and the songs are more accessible. To my humble opinion this is a good album with great symphonical moments. I don't know if the band still exists but I do know Arcansiel recently re-recorded some of these songs for a compilation album.