This stellar Swedish gang is back with a vengeance and their first new studio work in four years! Actually, there were some bonus tracks on the reissue of their last album, their first release with Lion Music, 2005's A Work of Art (Click here to read our review ) (original release 2002). This however, is the first release featuring the newest configuration of the group which is now missing the adroit guitar stylings of Fredrik G. (Grunberger).
Despite what I perceived to be a huge loss (Fred), the result here is another slab of 75 minutes plus of majestic, intelligent, soaring melody and interesting hooks, storylines and riffs. The guitar work offered up by bass player Johan Niemann is confident and punchy, fitting in elegantly with the various musical themes and dare I say, at the end of the day his understated work enhances this particular work more than Fred's over the top style may have done.
The real strength of this release is however the excellent song writing, all conceived and achieved within the theme and concept of mankind's evolution and interaction with our earth. We are indeed walking on thin h2o. All but two songs (co-written with Niemann) are from musician extraordinaire Daniel Flores (keyboards, drums and backing vocals) who also recorded the album in his new home studio.
What Daniel has produced is a gorgeous sounding mix of symphonic prog and classic rock hooks featuring the excellent vocals of Andreas Novak. Although Daniel has been extremely busy over the past four years as one of the premier session drummers in Sweden (now having over 50 albums to his credit) the time that was obviously taken to craft this band release is evident in its quality. This is truly one of the very finest and most musically accomplished releases to ever surface from Lion and a superb way to start 2006 indeed.
Track List
1. Earth - The Movie
2. A Rabbit In The Hat
3. Equally Immortal
4. Mrs. Clair Voyance
5. Sahara In An Hourglass
6. Out Of My System
7. Umbrellas Under The Sun
8. Sacred Rules
9. The Nazca Lines
10. Flight Of The An.Unna.Ki
11. Heal My Karma
12. When I Whisper
13. Poseidon Says
Printer Friendly Page
Send to a Friend
