PATHFINDER

Stylistically the music is a combination of symphonic progressive rock and classic rock. Guitars, bass, drums, and keyboards fill the instrumental part of the soundscape. The keyboards are predominantly piano and organ, with the rare use of mellotron, giving the album an early progressive rock atmopshere. Lead vocalist Martin Griffiths has a strong voice, and a passionate and skilled delivery. He is in the paatos filled and sligthly theatrical end of the vocalist scale, but his vocal style suits the music well.

"Pathfinder" opens with the catchy and mainstream oriented "Hobo" and then gets a little more progressive with the cover of "MacArthur Park", which was originally recorded in 1968 by actor Richard Harris. It´s actually more long and epic than adventurous and progressive. The album also continues down the semi-progressive rock path on the remaining five tracks, and "Pathfinder" is an album which has a hard time deciding wether it wants to be a progressive rock album or a classic rock album.

Being eclectic is not always a bad choice, but here it means that "Pathfinder" is a pretty standard quality release if you come at it from a progressive rock standpoint, and it´s probably a bit too adventurous if you come from a classic rock standpoint. "Pathfinder" is well produced and Beggars Opera are a well playing/singing band so those are high quality features...if only the songwriting had been more interesting and defined. A 3 star (60%) rating is deserved.

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