Prophecy has been keeping us writers pretty busy by releasing one double album after the other. It started out with the outstanding compilation , Whom the Moon a Nightsong Sings, followed by Antimatter. Now it's Nucleus Torn's turn and coming up is Helrunar.
Nucleus Torn is the work of Swiss multi-instrumentalist, Fredy Schnyder. Travellers is a compilation of sort that includes: earlier work, unreleased and hard to find, as well as re-worked material. This is not really a "best of" type of compilation as such, but more of "must have" rarities for the fans. The first five tracks are purely acoustic instrumentals. Although not a classical guitar player, I enjoyed the intricacy and the neo-classical/progressive music done in an un-plugged environment. "Krähenkönigin III" was particularly enjoyable, off that playlist. Then followed a series of progressive tunes that somewhat broke the calmer & dreamy vibe. Mr. Schnyder's vocals appear to be a bit stressful and nasal, for my own taste. On the other hand, those compositions included nice musical breaks, fortunately. "Nucleus Torn" is actually a great piece of progressive music, with an epic nine minutes plus time duration. Variation is the word on this song, and of his songwriting skills shine throughout this tune. I believed he used steel guitar on "Neon-light Submission" or perhaps some other string instrument. Then comes another instrumental called "Traveller's Rest, complete with progressive tones and classical guitar, along with the introduction of crushing riffs. The finger picking style is top notch, while a certain Genesis mood shows up here and there. You can feel an almost Led Zep vibe on "Leadless", with an open-tuned acoustic giving an Oriental sound coupled with tom toms.
All in all, a good compilation of rarities and blend of musical styles, but I really enjoyed more the instrumentals on them.
Track listing:
1. Krähenkönigin I
2. Krähenkönigin II
3. Krähenkönigin III
4. Krähenkönigin IV
5. Silver
6. Witness
7. Beggar
8. Nucleus Torn
9. Neon-Light Submission
10. Traveller's Rest
11. Leadless
12. Lurking
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