ENCHANTED

By far not the worst I've encountered from a one man band; Alfred Mueller is good at playing as well as composing music.

If you can live with listening to instruments clearly emulated by keyboards, and like symphonic and melodic music, there are enough good tracks on this release to make it worthwhile checking out. Symphonic prog rock fans in particular.

Most interesting track here for most will probably be the ELP-inspired 12 minute workout "The King's Enchanter".

This was Alfred's sixth solo album, released in 2006, where yet again he provides all of the instrumentation. In many ways this is one of my favourite Soniq Theater albums as there are some great numbers on here that any lover of keyboard-based symphonic prog would get a great deal from. I can even forgive him for using programmed drums as here they aren't too overpowering. But, the one thing I can't forgive is that yet again he has used Suzann to provide scat vocals on a number, this time "Morgana". I have a real problem with someone singing out of tune with the music. I know that Alfred has probably just sampled this, but if he is going to use vocals they need to fit in what he is doing musically. The first time I played this was when I was up the woods walking my dogs and I just couldn't believe my ears ? it totally spoiled my enjoyment of the album as a whole.

But, the rest of the album is so good that it still deserves three stars and like all of his others they are available directly from Arthur at a very good price. www.soniqtheater.de