WANDERLUST

It might sound paradox, but to me this album sounds old and modern, complex and catchy at the same time. I'd say the perfect prog album, at least for my taste. Of course there'll be plenty of progsters finding too little innovation and weirdness here. Those one I would recommend to stay off this one. But for any lover of retro- or 70's prog I just can say that it's an excellent one in symphonic prog with a decent amount of heavy guitar but without ever crossing the line towards metal at any moment.

I've to put only the slight criticism that the chorus line of "Higher" reminds me very much to a song on Citizen Cain's "Raising The Stone". But since this song is really excellently done, this minor flaw is easily forgiven. An influence by that group and thus by Genesis (Gabriel) is certainly present in their music, though being not too obvious, especially not by the vocals that I find very good and unique. As well a slight influence by Gentle Giant in the multi-layered vocals of "Weariness Rides" can't be denied. Rather I would say Little Atlas combines influences from the last thirty years of progressive music to create their very own sound. I've to admit I haven't been diggin' this album right from the beginning. After the very first spin I was thinking that it's an absolutely irrelevant one and it was passing me by in some way. But after a while I put it again into my player and what shall I say, I've got a complete impression of it and the songs finally reached the responsive areas in my brain. One fellow reviewer mentioned that this is the best album he bought since "I Move" by Izz. I would even go beyond that comparison and say that it's even better than that one which could not fascinate me half as much.

All tracks on here are very good to excellent epic songs with very nice melodies that get stuck in your brain but not without the right portion of complexity to make them sound interesting. Highlights are I would say "Higher", "The Prisoner" and "Mirror Of Life" in which Bill Ayasse of Frogg Café is playing violin. Although it's a VERY GOOD album I wouldn't call it an essential one in prog from the general point of view, thus I'm giving it "only" 3 stars, but my true rating would be 3 ½.