SHACKLETON'S VOYAGE

This is not a masterpiece or the most innovative album of 2009, far from it, but it's an enjoyable easy listening experience. EUREKA is basically Frank Bossert, German multi-intrumentalist. Other musicians or vocalists are only guesting on one or two tracks, so practically Frank would have been capable of playng the whole work himself, like Mike Oldfield has done. I'm not very happy with all the guest appearances (the narration, by Ian Dickinson, is rather irritating feature; luckily there's quite little of it), but mostly they bring some needed ingredients to the whole. Billy Sherwood (familiar of his YES-connections) sings on two tracks, and the legendary Troy Donockley plays Uillean pipes on other two. There are also appearances of RPWL's Yogi Lang on Moog and synthesizers.

The concept album follows (track by track in the lavishly illustrated leaflet) Sir Ernest Shackleton's voyage to Antarctica. A nice concept even if not highly original: voyages seem to be one of the most typical concepts. It's up to the listener how closely (s)he wants to follow the story or if (s)he prefers just to enjoy the music as music - as I did. The album is harmless in that level too, usable as background music.

Musically it's melodic instrumental Neo-Prog with some Celtic feel. Well played, well produced, easy to listen to - easy to forget? Time will tell how much I enjoy this after many listenings, but for now this is worth four stars. There may not be absolute hair-raising moments of bliss, but not a single track I wouldn't want to hear either (except the brief intro track with the narration). Also some more variation or unpredictability would have done good towards the end. But a fairly nice album in its safeness.