THE THIRD EYE

The Third Eye is the third release by German keyboard virtuoso Alfred Mueller under the Soniq Theater moniker.

As with his other releases, this CD contains a mix of symphonic and progressive soundscapes, with some ambient moods and slight tendencies towards soundtrack music. Floating synths are mixed with emulated instruments, with drums, electric and acoustic guitar as well as bass guitar most noteable in the compositions, and the tunes are spiced with keyboard and synth layers; often numerous of these.

On this release most of the songs explore a dark and at times sinister musical landscape, which suits this music perfectly. Many strong tracks here, especially in the first half of the CD. Mueller seems to run out of steam a bit towards the end; but even so this is a good release, and a good starting point for exploring this artists discography.

Alfred's third solo album was released in 2003, and is with his previous album he not only inferred which number album it was in the title he also played all of the instruments. There are a lot of really good things on here, especially "Bilbo Is Back" which is definitely Wakeman to a tee as it gently bounces along with a poptastic refrain. The only thing wrong with this song is that it is less than three minutes long! But, then it gets spoiled by the track that follows it "Vamos A Ver". This is one of the few times when vocals are utilised, where Alfred has sampled a singer called Suzann and has used her during the chorus and I really wished that he hadn't as the second scat line is massively out of tune with the music and every time I hear it I feel as if someone has dragged fingernails across a blackboard. And of course as it is sampled the same thing is repeated each time it is used. Either change the melody or don't use it!

To me this puts a dampener on what is one of Alfred's most accessible and enjoyable albums as he mixes Wakeman with Emerson and even throws in some JMJ for good measure. This is well worth hearing, but I bet you only play the third song just the once to see if I'm right.. www.soniqtheater.de (I am)

Exactly one year after the offering of ''A second of action'', in September 2003 comes Alfred Mueller's third personal work under the Soniq Theater name, carrying the title ''A third eye''.While Mueller is responsible for all keyboards, electronic drums, programmed instrumentation and composing, it was the first time a guest appears in one of his album, named Suzann and applying some vocal lines in the track ''Vamos a ver''.

What happens with Soniq Theater's works starts to become rather disturbing by the release of ''A third eye''.Mueller won't strike the prog community with his talent, but his arrangements sound again decent enough with modern, symphonic vibes and the keyboards being the dominant instruments in yet another album.Moreover, even if the album is heavily based on synthesizers, some Mellotron, organ and string samples are available and the music ranges from bombastic and atmospheric to more melodic and ethereal.But once again the problems appear in the horizon.The fake orchestrations, the thin keyboards and the totally synthetic sound of guitars, bass and drums are rather weak-sounding if not unbearable at specific moments.Every track in her contains part of these elements, meaning that all compositions are downgraded at some point.On the other hand there is still interesting material in ''A third eye'', the more rhythmic passages with the powerful keyboards and some of the melodies are quite ok, while Mueller appears slowly to move away from the E.L.P. influences for a more contemporary style of Electronic-spiced Neo/Symphonic Prog.

Free downloadable on the artist's personal webpage, that means free to be judged by any Prog fan around the world.According to my ears, this is decent, instrumental Neo/Symphonic Prog with evident Electronic touches, which struggles to be more than that due to the aforementioned reasons.