JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH

One of my brothers bought this album and also the "King Arthur" album by Wakeman in 1977, I think. At that time, I didn`t like both albums. In the summer of 1980, as I was waiting to enter to High School, I spent some time of my holidays reading Jules Verne`s book "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", and I read it for several weeks until I finished it, being itself a very long story. But it was maybe a year later that I finally listened again to this album and to the "King Arthur" album too, but I still didn`t like the "King Arthur" album, but I liked a lot this "Journey" album, which is more accessible than the "King Arthur" album, in my opinion. The Side One of the L.P ("The Journey/Recollection") is better, in my opinion. But Wakeman`s band in this album is not very good. I don`t like the voices of the lead singers Pickford- Hopkins and Holt. The bassist and the drummer only did they jobs, really. The guitarist played a solo, and after hearing Steve Howe in some YES`s albums with Wakeman, this guitarist is still good but I think that Wakeman could have chosen better musicians as his backing band. Wakeman employed other 2 musicians to do the orchestral and choral arrangements.The arrangements are very good. The narration is a good summary of the Jules Verne`s story, and when I found the narration written in one website dedicated to Wakeman, I printed it to read it when I listen to this album, and this makes me enjoy the album better. Wakeman`s keyboards are not as dominant in this album as in other albums he have recorded. He had to give time to the orchestra, only playing sometimes a subtle synth or piano, but there are several synth solos which are very good, despite some of the synths`s sounds sound somewhat dated now. This is a very good album.