ODYSSEY - THE GREATEST TALE

I can admit that I was not able to listen to this all in one sitting. After all 9 songs, all over 20 mintues can be a lot to take in all at once. Still, since it is 9 different bands, each taking a track, it makes it much easier to digest. I've said in other reviews that I love these Collsus releases, and this is no exception. Unlike Kalevla, each band here gets over 20 mintues to explore their piece of the epic poem "Odyssey". Two of the track are completely instrumental, and with one exception the ones with vocals are done in the bands native language. Personally, I enjoyed the songs on the first CD more, but that could easily change with repeated listens (Minimum Vitals contribution to the 3rd CD also stands out in my mind as being very good). All in all, another excellent release by Collsus. When I first read about these projects, I didn't see how they could really work and thought they were a disaster waiting to happen (seemed like much of the negative aspects of prog pulled together to make a project). With Kalevala, I was proven wrong. And while that album still remains as the weakest of the projects (probably because of each band only getting a single, 10 minute or less, song to fit into the epic poem context), I still think these are all great projects.

A solid 4 stars for this.