DOOMSDAY AFTERNOON

Phideaux is a special guy. This American and his music appeared in 2004 with "Fiendish" (actually he had released an album in 1992 called "Friction", but this is ignored in his discography) and has since joined his first "Ghost Story", the phenomenal "Chupacabras" (which is my favorite album from him), "313" and "The Great Leap". But they all would have remained in obscurity if not for his magnum opus "Doomsday Afternoom."

This album was one of the biggest surprises of 2007 and established the name Phideaux. It is his most ambitious project, and fortunately it worked. Both Phideaux like most people who know and listen to their albums regard this as his work - material.

But I do not. I'm not an avid fan of Phideaux, but I admire and respect his music . However, the more I listen to "Doomsday Afternoom" I am not able to revere him as a masterpiece . At best, I give 4 stars.

Now, no one can disagree with the musical quality of this album. In addition to his band , Phideaux also recruited some members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (14, if I remember correctly) to supplement and enrich the sound of "Doomsday" . The result is quite amazing, making this album a symphonic prog monster that is a delight for lovers and supporters of classical music (like me) with his orchestrations and such. Sometimes I wonder if Phideaux deserves to be classified as a Crossover Prog artist because his music has become more ambitious and symphonic with each album - but this, of course, is not something that I decide.

But that's not all. As a lover of good music prog, Phideaux flooded this album with references to the 70s prog giants. They are diverse: there are touches of Genesis ("Formaldehyde"), Pink Floyd ("Thank you for the Evil"), Yes (the synthesizer in "The Doctrine of Eternal Ice pt. 1") and - gasp - Van Der Graaf Generator ("The Doctrine of Eternal Ice pt. 2") , in addition to some touches of Camel and Jethro Tull, especially on the flute. The sound is sometimes quite gothic ("Candybrain"), recalling the days of "Chupacabras" .

I'm a little oblivious to the concept of the album, but it seems that Phideaux unites Bible stories and concepts to issues such as global warming and ecology is in the second part of a trilogy that began with "The Great Leap" and ends with an album tentatively called "Infernal" , which until now has not been released (Phideaux seems to have an appreciation for names referring to Satanism and the like - ughh).

The album with a whisper mentioning "one, two, three, four" before entering a delicate piano. It is "Micro Softdeathstar" , the first epic of the album . I will not describe this track, because it is a bit complex and also I do not like her. In fact, three of the epic of the album (besides this, there is still "The Doctrine of Eternal Ice", which is divided into two parts, and "Microdeath Softstar"), I just like "The Doctrine ..." , and not that much. For me the other two and "Thank you for the Evil are the weakest of the album, alongside the second version of " Crumble ".

The first part of "The doctrine of eternal ice" is substantially better than the second, with its synthesizers, guitar solos, oboes, magnificent orchestration, and a beautiful piano that ends - all in three minutes. It leads to two of my favorite songs on the album, "Candybrain" and "Crumble" (this, in its instrumental version) . The first marks a return to gothic times Phideaux with great vocals, fun and beautiful palms equal to the closing previous track - but in place of the piano enters the flute, and finally Phideaux whispers "... and this is what they say".The second is an instrumental that opens with a sad piano and some female vocals (I love voice of this singer - is the least perfect), then a little text accompanied by orchestral music and the phrase ended earlier (this time sung by the singer) makes a transition to the first initial return of the theme, this time led by the oboe. Simply wonderful the two.

The second part of "The Doctrine ..." is good, but a vague sense of repetition - especially in relation to the theme of the first song. "Thank you for the Evil" is basically a floydian song that Pink Floyd never recorded - it all refers to the band from synthesizers to the atmosphere - though she did not convince me and even today I can not digest it. "The wasteland of memories" is a bit better, with interesting orchestrations (like the soundtrack to a movie), but then comes the second version (think "version" sounds better than "part") of "Crumble", this time with female vocals, which to me is honestly the only good aspect of this mediocre song that does nothing but repeat the themes of the first version, but this time without the orchestra and oboe - thus without the same success.

Fortunately, "Formaldehyde" improved things significantly. This is the best song on the disc and one of my favorite band (after "Chupacabras") . The synth line in the beginning reminds me immediately to "The Cinema Show" - every moment of this music is unique, although the end is a much harm - and the line developed "Satan's angels fly" bother me a bit. Unfortunately, the epic "Microdeath Softstar" is nothing to me than 15 minutes of wasted time, where it all comes down to basically collages of themes throughout the album - just a very original guitar solo there for me like 7 minutes. A frustrating end to an album that could have been much better.

5 stars: The Doctrine of Eternal Ice pt. 1, Candybrain, Crumble (instrumental), The Wasteland of Memories, Formaldehyde

3 star: Micro Softdeathstar, The Doctrine of Eternal Ice pt.2, Thank you for the Evil, Crumble (vocals), Microdeath Softstar

Average: 4.00

4 stars. This is not a masterpiece, but a good and meaningful album.