TIME LOST

3.5 stars.This record consists of songs from the past, either from the "Wounded" sessions or before. Some of the older songs have been touched up a bit, and the band confesses that the playing isn't up to par on a couple of the old ones (at least up to their high standards).

Things get started with "Blind Sided" that is highlighted by the low end guitar melody that comes and goes throughout the song. "New Moon" is an old tune that is all about the great vocals of Ted Leonard. Some good but short synth work, and the song ends with an extended guitar melody. "Under The Sun" is one of my favourites on this record, opening with a gentle guitar melody, this very good song features crisp drumming, some good synth work and some great guitar.

"Foundations" opens with a keyboard passage and is another mid-paced song. "Interact" is another old song that features tasteful guitar throughout. "Standing Ground" is the first song that has some life ! Opening with heavy drums and more in your face guitar, but it's short lived, although the drumming is fantastic throughout. The final tune "Mettle Man" is the other song I really like. Lots of keys and guitar and is pretty much an instrumantal as vocals come in right at the end of the song.

Overall a good release that doesn't live up to the first two records.They originally were going to release this as an EP, but had enough unreleased songs to make it a full lenghth album. I do recommend this though, even if there isn't much variety on it, it's still ENCHANT.

Enchant is one of the few bands that hardly produces any weak songs. If there is one album of them with considerable quality- difference it's Time Lost. So I will give each song a short evaluation: 1. Blind sided: a fairly good song but not very special: 3 stars 2. New Moon: Best song of them all: 5 stars. Very good guitarwork by Doug Ott. 3. Under the sun: bit dull, not too great. 2 stars. 4. Foundations: maybe their poorest effort ever. 2 stars 5. Interact: Their longest song ever and a good one, good build up. 4 stars 6. Standing ground: interesting song, very original and catchy. 4 stars 7. Mettle man. An (almost) instrumental. Good guitar work again By Ott. 4.5 stars

So with mathematics: a slight edge for the 4 stars (3.5 actually)

In 1997 Enchant, now having become pretty well-known among starving fans of Prog Rock, return with their third album ''Time lost''.And if there were any questions about how prolific they were during the second half of the 90's, liner notes of the album are there to give the answer, because this work comprised both of new compositions and old material, not making it to the pair of Enchant's first album.One Brian Cline appears on additional bass on ''Mettle man'', the album was released worldwide on Inside Out and marked also the second work of the band on the Japanese Fandango label.The material was recorded in three different studios around California.

I wonder how the hell these guys were so much inspired during this period, we're talking about partly leftover tracks in here, but the material is so good it often surpasses the ''normal'' Enchant tracks of the first two albums.''Time lost'' is high-octane Heavy/Neo Prog with powerful, super-tight songwriting, headed by a young and passionate singer and an excellence on finding the balance between dynamic grooves, atmospheric soundscapes and melodic moments.It falls into the category of lyrical Progressive Rock, which gives emphasis on thoughtful texts and atmospheric climates, but never forgets to add some complexity in the process.Long tracks with some superb keyboard and guitar moves, although the instrumental sections are rather reduced compared to the vocal passages, but this team had a unique way to combine both in the appropriate doses.Ted Leonard's screaming, irritating vocals and the period synthesizers maybe give a touch of AOR taste in the album, but the music is far more adventurous and demanding than any AOR band I know.RUSH are again a certain source of inspiration along with heavier bands of the Neo Prog movement and pinches of Prog Metal.On a personal note ''Blind sided'', ''Foundations'' and ''Under the sun'' are my personal favorites in here, filled with both dreamy and dramatic moments and a few bright instrumental parts.

A great point to start your experience with Enchant.Magnificent Heavy Prog with a sense of melody and varied atmospheres, even likely to please fans of Prog Metal.Fantastic and highly recommended effort.

Time Lost is not Enchant´s third album. It should rather have been placed as a boxset as it includes four outtakes from Enchant´s second album Wounded and three pre-album tracks with re-recorded vocals from Ted Leonard who wasn´t in the band in 1989 when these three songs were recorded. I guess the band thought these songs were so good that they just had to be released or maybe Inside Out tired to make some money of Enchant´s succes ? Either way Time Lost is a worthy purchase and a good album.

The style Enchant play is soft progressive metal. If you like the Wounded album from Enchant Time Lost is a must as the four outtakes from that album which appear here on Time Lost are very good and they could just as easily have been on the original album. Some of them are IMO even better than the songs on Wounded but strangely enough they were cut from that album. Blind Sided is probably my favorite Enchant song from the early Enchant ( Before Break) and both New Moon and Under the Sun are also very strong compositions. Foundations is good too.

The three pre-album tracks Interact, Standing Ground and Mettle Man are all good but it´s very obvious that these are early songs from the band. Interact is too long while Standing Ground doesn´t really do much and the almost entirely instrumental Mettle Man is just an average track too.

The musicianship is very good. Ted Leonard steals the picture on Time Lost IMO as his vocals are brilliant.

There is no doubt that if you should invest in Time Lost it should be to get a hold of the first four outtakes from Wounded because even though the last three songs are good they are a bit below standard for Enchant. Time Lost will get a 3 star rating from me. I´m not sure but I think Wounded can be purchased with Time Lost as a bonus disk and if that´s the case I would recommend you buy that one instead of course.

"Time Lost" isn't really a proper Enchant album but a selection of leftovers that didn't make it to any of the two studio efforts "A Blueprint of the World" and "Wounded". Well, as clear as the connotations of the expression "leftover compilation" can resonate in our minds and ears, the fact is that the material gathered in "Time Lost" is no time lost for the prog listener at all. The pieces bear such a musical quality and melodic ingenuity that one has to wonder why these pieces didn't gain a more defining fate in Enchant's discography: some tracks are undoubtedly and definitely more impressive and powerful than one third of each aforesaid studio effort. The writing of a couple of these songs date back from a time when neither Leonard or Platt were Enchant members; there is also 'Standing Ground', written by guitarist Ott when he hadn't entered the band to eventually become the main writer. "Time Lost" was released to promote the band's 1997 American-European tour, but it really is a valuable item for prog fans that enjoy classic symphonic prog as well as neo-prog. The longest pieces are 'Interact' and 'Mettle Man'. Their brilliance has to do with their respective extensions, which allow the instrumentalists to state fluid dialogues and interactions through the motif shifts and varying tempos. 'Mettle Man' bears only a few lyrics near the end, with the first 8 minutes devoted to explore a dynamic combination of melodic prog metal and heavy prog (originally performed by an Enchant quartet whose bass player also sang, but here it is duly performed by the original quintet). The already mentioned 'Standing Ground' comprises an effective heavy trend that enhances the main motif's hooks, as well as the impressive instrumental interlude. And I can't go on skipping the opener 'Blindsided', a beautiful Marillion-meets-DT homage to the pain of a broken heart, delivered in such a muscular manner: pure old-fashioned Enchant at its best. 'Under the Sun' finds the band efficiently exploring those dense ambiences that make the best of their dominantly romantic pieces. As always, Craddick's class and elegance on the drum kit become crucial for the song's developing scheme. In conclusion, "Time Lost" is a must for any proghead who loves their prog melodic and energetic, with moderate heaviness: it is as important as any of the other Enchant releases w/ Benignus & Craddick.

Progressive mettle, man!

There is a debate about whether Time Lost should be considered a proper original studio album by Enchant or instead a compilation featuring improved versions of older demos. Regardless of which, Time Lost contains some of Enchant's best ever material and also some of their most progressive. Indeed, this is the album that is closest in style to the band's excellent 1995 debut A Blueprint Of The World - and this one is very nearly as good! Insofar as it is true that some of these songs were discarded from the band's second release - 1996's Wounded - it is very odd as most of these songs are much better than most of those found on Wounded.

Time Lost features seven tracks, most of which are fairly long with the 80's Rush-like Interact exceeding the ten minute mark. Picking out highlights this time is hard since all of the songs are equally powerful. The musicianship is very strong throughout and the sound quality is up to par with that of A Blueprint Of The World, though less good compared to Wounded.

I'm not alone in praising Time Lost - many fans seem to have a soft spot for this album. If you are new to Enchant you would do best by starting at the beginning with A Blueprint Of The World. If you like that album, Time Lost is an excellent companion and a great set of songs in its own right.

Third full length album by the heavy prog act Enchant!

Time Lost consists in four new tracks plus three unreleased three compositions, produced by the guitarist Douglas A. Ott.

And maybe that's the main reason that this album sounds like a mixture of their first and second efforts, because the different band stages when it was composed. So the more heavy and straightforward guitars in the vein of Wounded are mixed with some symphonic and neo-prog elements typical of the first band's release.

But maybe for this reason, this album is also a bit more dynamic and not so repetitive like Wounded. And despite it does not reach the quality of A Blueprint of the World, it's also worthy of the attention of 90's heavy prog fans mainly because the awesome vocals of Ted Leonard and the excellent guitar work of Douglas A. Ott.

Best Tracks: Under the Sun, Foundations and Mettle Man.

Conclusion: despite having been composed in different sessions and times, Time Lost is a cohesive record with a pair of very fine songs and a solid work of the whole band, especially the splendid (but a bit repetitive to be honest) Ted Leonard and the colourful riffs of Douglas A. Ott.

My rating: ***

Enchant's Time Lost can be seen as a companion piece to Wounded - indeed, its most recent rerelease was as part of a remastered 2CD set with Wounded on the other disc. The first four songs, in fact, hail from the Wounded sessions - and the original plan was to just put this out as an EP of those off-cuts - but then the band decided that they may as well also take the opportunity to revisit some of their earliest material which they might not otherwise find a good home for.

As such, the last three songs (Interact, Standing Ground, and Mettle Man) in fact consist of pre-Blueprint of the World material, with Ted Leonard adding in vocals and Ed Platt redoing the bass since the original recordings dated from before they were in the band. One might think that this would result in a confused, disjointed mess, but it ends up working surprisingly well.

Perhaps part of this stems from the nature of the songs cut from Wounded. On that release, the band generally shifted to a somewhat heavier sound, with lots of Dream Theater and Rush influence, compared to their sound on A Blueprint of the World; by comparison, the Wounded off-cuts here are all a bit less prog-metal-ish, and so are a bit closer to the band's neo-prog roots than that release was. This already means that they sit fairly naturally next to the earlier material, which of course would have predated their injection of Dream Theater influence into their sound. (The major touchstone I'd identify for both halves of the album, in fact, would be synth-period Rush.)

As you might expect, the fact that this is an odds-and-ends album does mean that consistency is an issue; in particular, I found Foundations sufficiently uninspiring that I nearly gave up listening partway through it. The other three Wounded off-cuts are decent, but as far as Foundations go... well, the kindest thing I'll say is that the decision to leave it off Wounded showed good and sound judgement on the part of the band.

However, I thought things really perked up with the early tracks - Interact is a ten minute epic which really helps make up for the comparatively simplistic Foundations, and Standing Ground and Mettle Man might be the band's best tributes to the Rush sound to date. With the album ending on such a high, it's easy to forgive a slump in the middle of the running order, and I'd say on average this is actually an improvement on Wounded, which given its disjointed origins is truly impressive.