ARRIVAL

I stumbled onto this "band" by accident.....and what a terrific find! I haven't heard as competent a multi-instrumentalist as talented as Jeff Hamel since Mike Oldfield. And that's a mighty high bar. The first listen I had to this CD, I had no idea I wasn't hearing a 4-piece band. That's how good Hamel is.

The songs are long, but keep the listener entranced. What we have here seems a new breed called symph prog metal. The closest thing I can compare this music to that is current (excuse me, please, Mr. Oldfield) would be Project Creation. The production quality doesn't seem all it could be, and that element IS present with PC.

This project deserves keeping a close watch on. As a keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist myself, I will take an apprentice's eye view of what Jeff Hamel does here and down the road.

Fans of prog metal, symphonic prog, Project Creation, and others of this ilk would do well to give this a listen.