THE VOYAGE - A TRIP TO ELSEWHERE

At least IMO, Isildurs Bane is one of the most ambitious and complex bands of mid 90's and early 00's. Perhaps the band has some weak productions, most of their discography it's really amazing and the band has built during the years their own and singular style.

This album in particular has most of the elements that a dedicated prog fan loves: long symphonic epics, dark chamber rock sections, intrincated melodies and harmonies, mixture of classical and electric instruments and quiet and peaceful musical moments, starting with the opener "The Adventure of the Whirling Delerium", a sofisticated chamber rock piece with some madrigal elements, plenty of intrincated and beautiful chord arrangements but even with constant melodic changes and some proggy and sometimes almost RIO epic sections.

"A Telescope and a Hot Air Balloon" starts with a pleasant piano and violin intro which turns into a dark and almost heavy section leaded by electric guitar and drums to evolve into a beautiful proggy melody. The value of this piece is their constant come back to chamber rock elements without the lose of symphonic prog sound.

"Picassiette - First Wal"k maybe is an harmonic and quiet piece leaded by piano and flute but still with constant progression. Beautiful from the first to the last second. Then begins what I call "La Sagrada Familia suite" a serie of songs inspirated by the famous catalan catedral, all of them very short and built on thrilling church chorus arrangements.

"Das Junkerhaus" is the most avant garde song of the album, very experimental and dark doesn't fit totally with the rest of the album.

"Picassiette - Second Walk" has the same delicate and hypnotizing elements that their "first part" and act as a intro for Wild as a Toad, the long epic of the álbum, a piece with constant variations with some Crimson elements but fullfilled by chamber rock atmospheres. It's a track which has a lot of symphonic sections sometimes leaded by classical chords or exquisite electric guitar arrangements.

"Picassiette - Third Walk" is another fine and delicate piece leaded by a calm ald floating piano melody. Then we listen "Nimis - Wotan's Tower" a short and rhytmical piece which reminds me proggy tunes "a la Happy the Man".

The album ends with the powerful and complex "Magnificient Giant Battles", a piece which resume in 6 minutes most of the more raw and classic RIO sound with very galloping symphonic sections.

As I said before, we are in front of a complex album, probably too much directed to exquisite prog listeners perhaps that is the reason why this álbum is so enjoyable?