MAIDEN VOYAGE

Flagship is a young band in progressive rock scene but with known musician in metal field, because they came from another swedish band of melodic power metal named Narnia. I knew Narnia couple of albums in late '90's and one this decade and I was quite impressed and pleasent surprised by this offering named Maiden voyage from 2005, Flagship sounds very diffrent then Narnia. Flagship includes three members from that power metal band: Linus Kåse on keyboards, Christian Rivel on lead vocals and Carljohan Grimmark on guitars. Also Linus Kase is the member of another progressive rock outfit from Sweden named Brighteye Brison. All embers did a fine job here, a truly symphonic prog album with a lot to offer. Every musician shine on every track, living no place to take a breath after each piece. The music is very fluent, the pieces run to each other very well, with a touch of Kansas, maybe because of the violin segments, but aswell the keyboards sound very Kansas in places, but all the time good. The tracks are lenghty, each one over 7 min, enough space for each musician to make a great job. All tracks are quite complex and very rich orchestrated, very good musicianshiip on every second of this album. As the album goes from one piece to another some influences I find, or better said similar with Spock's Beard or even some Styx but this time very vague, mostly on vocal parts but not a copy after all. As I said the music is very up tempo in places but combined with fine piano arrangements, some very intristing rhythnic section on all tracks, from mellow in the beggining and then just in a second after turns a totaly with the vein one, excellent, great musicians. The keyboard parts are absolutly great, not a weak moments here , Linus Kase is a brilliant musicians who knows how to use the instruments and creat something worth intrest. Grimmark's rhythm guitar moves from more melancholic overtones in places combined with Kansas like piano to more metalic one like on The throne, very well structurated and well produce. The tracks are long and demonstrates that Flagship realy are a band to check out if you like this style of music, the strenght of the musicians are excellent. Now, the voice of the manin songwritter here Christian Rivel is very good and fits to this kind of music like a glove. They have invited as guest the mighty Kerry Livgren on last track Ground zero, nice job of this unmatced musician. So, a very good album, a nice surprise for me, because knowing that some of the members are from a metal band who played quite diffrent music, this time they done it, big time. Mayden voyage is a solid album in symphonic prog scene with talented musicians and very well composed pieces. Recommended for sure, 4 stars.