LABYRINTH

The music in this album is definitely psychedelic space rock with mixes of heavy prog and atmospheric rock.

Is good that a multinstrumentalist took the decision to be accompanied in this album with other musicians. If still the instruments sound a little linear as in his other albums (because of many synth one man instruments)here we can listen to group playing rock .

And compostions are very good ,very good space prog rock.

I can deny Hamel is very talented.... So a good album.

What I still don t like very much is (as i said above) the still a little linear sound of the instruments.

I think the solution is that Hamel only dedicates to the guitar and a keyboard player to be welcome to the band.

4 stars.

Majestic is used to play longs songs and this one is no different with 3 longs tracks starting with a 31 minutes epic that allows for long instrumental passages with spacey keyboards, many tempo changes. The guitars can be very heavy at times close to what Ayeron do. The female and male vocals are used mostly in this first song, the rest is much more on the instrumental side. The song structure is built like a crescendo that gets to a emotional climax that reminds a lot of what the Neo-Prog band Sylvan have done. However the second track is a long and quiet interlude of 14 minutes where there is not much going on where the band show is Pink Floyd influence. The third track is much more interesting with the come back of all intruments shinning again with a lot of keyboards, sounding very much like the band Lands End. The drums can sound a little bit tinny compare to a big production of a complete band, but the compositions have enough quality to be enjoyable. I would give a 3.5 stars.

Available as a free download (see the relevant thread on the forum), this 2011 release from American multi instrumentalist Jeff Hamel with vocalist Jessica Rasche definitely deserves a sight more attention than it has received thus far on the site.

There are only three tracks on offer here, the shortest one being a mere 14:20 minutes long. So, you would think, a prog fans trip to nirvana! Well, yes, but, as with many such artists, the key question is whether such a product is both good enough musically and well produced to keep the listener's attention from wondering to other places. I am very glad to report that Hamel manages this tricky issue with some aplomb.

It is a brave thing indeed to open an album with an epic in excess of 31 minutes, but this is what is done with the title track. With its opening passage, with doom laden guitar and bass, what I thought I would have to look forward to was, basically, an Ayreon type of album, which is fine if you like that sort of thing, but it does belie what follows, and patience, and, crucially, a number of listens are essential here. Because, there are many tempo and mood changes on offer here, and once Rasche settles into her vocals three minutes in, you start to pay a bit more attention, and there are more than enough changes here to keep the interest going, and, whilst slightly overblown in places, this is a very accomplished piece of music. At turns heavy, orchestral, and mellow, this is a very good piece of music, and if you are not tapping your feet and nodding your head in appreciation at the conclusion, then you are probably clinically deceased. It is certainly very comparable to some of Dream Theater's better moments.

Mosaic is a very dreamy, almost psychedelic, piece of rock music, and Rasche's wonderful vocals are very much in keeping with the mood of the music she accompanies. When Hamel unleashes his guitar solo, which is very good, he takes a mellow spacey track to an altogether darker place, which has, presumably, the desired effect of breaking up the tempo, before the keyboards and drum/bass takes the track back to its Floydian roots, and I do really like the altogether too brief vocal harmonies at the conclusion.

Album closer, Phoenix Rising, demonstrates why this band are classified as neo on the site, because there really is a little bit of everything in here, and there are some quite lovely moments of music in a track completely free of vocals. There are, at the commencement, heavy passages clearly influenced by the likes of Dream Theater and Riverside, with maybe a touch of the more chaotic Yes moments circa Relayer, before the track develops extremely beautifully into a full blown symphonic masterpiece, and the final four minutes has moments which make you shudder with the beauty of what you hear. Hamel is a very talented guitarist, and the atmosphere and pace he generates with the closing passage are wonderful to listen to.

In conclusion, this is a very good album which absolutely promises much for the future. I have no hesitation in awarding it four stars with a strong recommendation for all who like heavy prog, psychedelic prog, and symphonic prog all rolled into one rather neat package.

Odd that this is my first review for ProgArchives. I always thought that I would pick a more well- known album, or a band of which I'm quite fond of. But neither is the case here. I decided to write this review when I was culling my prog rock playlist. This album is a free download from the artist's website, so trying it was definitely a no-brainer. This recording has 3 long "epic" songs; the longest of which is over 30 minutes! So I was quite looking forward to it. Unfortunately, as is the case too often with modern "epics", they are mostly a stream of disjointed musical thoughts, stitched together in the studio. The album is quite formulaic, using simple two-or three chord progressions in a somewhat ambient format, with overlays of other instrumentation. The first song, Labyrinth, is the longest, but also the least interesting piece. It flows from musical idea to musical idea, without much direction. None of the ideas really catch my interest. The drums (particularly the cymbals) are overpowering and do not add the desired energy to the track. There are some nice vocal interludes here, but if I am going to spend 30 minutes of my life on a song it needs to be a lot more interesting than this. I have removed it from my playlist. The second song, Mosaic, begins as a very Floyd-ian piece. A simple chord progression sets the mood, but the solos are much more riveting. This is for me, the highlight of the album. Unfortunately, after about 5 or 6 very interesting minutes, the song changes direction. It ends up being a corned beef hash of three differing musical ideas. It would have been much better broken into three different songs. I have kept this song in my playlist. The last song is the most proggish on the album. Again, it is a mish-mash of musical directions, but they are more interesting than on the first track. I quite like the ending. I have kept this song in my playlist (for now). Overall, not a bad album, but doubtfully one you will not want to spend a lot of time with. 2.29 stars, rounded down to 2.