Bastiaan Peeters of Odyssice must be sick of people telling him that he sounds just like Andy Latimer. But listen to this guitar-dominant symphonic instrumental music and you'll understand why so much literature describes his music that way. You won't confuse the two if you're intimately familiar with Camel's music, but you'll understand the comparison.
Moondrive was originally an EP released in early 1997. Moondrive Plus is a remaster of the original, with two bonus tracks and some PC-playable multimedia stuff. The music here is guitar oriented symphonic instrumental-only rock. Not metalesque like a Satriani, and not elevator music like the later Camel releases it is mature symphonic, very melodic rock. This is music that would be equally at home in the background as it would in a deeply focused, uninterrupted listening session.
The first 4 tracks (which are the re-mastered part) are tied together by sound effects in which someone gets into a car, drives off, zooms around corners, arrives at his destination and turns the car off. All these effects probably add up to less than a minute and do not intrude on the listening experience. In fact if you're a car guy, the sound of that tight euro-sports engine snicking through the gears will also be music to your ears. Based on these sounds and on the cover art, the idea is obviously to put you in the mind of a pleasurable night time drive. Another observation supporting the idea of a moonlit drive: In a few passages on the first track, the drums and bass produce a rhythm very reminiscent (deliberately?) of Golden Earring's Radar Love. Remember it? "I've been driving all night my hands wet on the wheel
" and that simple but driving rhythm.
The sound on the album is mainly guitar over keyboards, and if that sounds boring, rest assured this is music that you can play many times over. The slow, incredibly pure guitar solos rank with the very best of the David Gilmours, the Joe Satrianis, the Steve Hacketts, and yes the Andy Latimers of the world. Highly recommended.
Track Listing
Moondrive Suite
1) Frustrations (8:14)
2) And So Am I (5:09)
3) Different Questions (5:35)
4) The Final Decision (6:20)
Bonus Tracks
5) Losing Her (6:16)
6) Power Loc (live) (6:00)
Multimedia
Moon Drive (live) (6:27)
Eager Attempt (rehearsal demo) (2:12)
Demo Track (4:42)
Run time, excluding multimedia (37:38)
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