Country of Origin: Various Format: CD Record Label: Cyclops Catalogue #: CYCL 090 Year of Release: 2000 Time: 73:32/ Info: Cyclops Website

Tracklist CD2: Mostly Autumn - Pieces Of Love (4:15), Parallel Or 90 Degrees - Encapsulated (7:30), Pineapple Thief - Private Paradise (11:38), Salem Hill - When (5:58), Sinkadus - Positivharalen (7:15), Sphere - Shrimp SNG (4:09), Transience - Desert Falls (8:24), Twelfth Night - The Ceiling Speaks (6:28), Von Daniken - Fish Finger/Plank's Ton And Whelk Song (Extract From Electrick Fish Music) (3:34), Vulgar Unicorn - More Money Than I Know What To Do With (4:55), Kopecky - Bartholomew's Kite (8:04)

The fourth sampler from Cyclops comes in the form of a double-cd which gives an extremely broad view into the variety of progressive bands that have released or are releasing albums on this which can be considered as one of if not the leading progressive label around.

Country of Origin: USA Format: 2 CD Record Label: Pseudonym Records Catalogue #: CDP-1078-DD Year of Release: 2000 Time: 57:12/ 52:07 Info: Homepage

This must be one of the hardest disks (well actually two disks) I had to review in quite a while. The music is fine, vocals are wonderful and the production is excellent. But due to the fact that the album contains exclusively rock balads, it is very tough to listen to it from beginning to end, concentrated, without at a certain point getting enough of it. And playing the two disks in a row is practically impossible.

The two albums contain a total of 24 tracks, so you understand that I cannot discuss all of them in great depth. I will just in a couple of sentences indicate what I think of them. Lane sings flawlessly on all tracks, so no need to discuss that aspect of the albums ;-). The instrumentalists are (as usual) her husband Erik Norlander on everything with knobs and keys, and the Rocket Scientists clan, supplemented by some other guest musicians and her regular crew. The first disk contains completely new material (both original compositions and covers), recorded just after Lana Lane's Secrets of Astrology album, whereas the second disk (apart from Season's End) was released in 1998 as the 'Lana Lane Ballad Collection' (albeit only in Japan, where Lane has great successes). I saw the CDs as I discuss them now in a local record store for 40 guilders, normally the price of a single CD, so it's not an expensive double album!

The opening track Nether Lands, a cover from Dan Fogelberg, features Lana at her best. Quite a nice track (even though the song has nothing to do with my home country, despite the title), bit melancholic.
Hands To Heal opened more like a pop ballad (e.g. Madonna or something) but the chorus is more powerful. This is one of the original compositions on the album (it also contains a lot of covers, which I will denote as such in the review). The instruments are used very effectively on this track as well and a good rock ballad is the result.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a cover from Elton John, and actually I do not like this song. This has nothing to do with the performance on this album, but with the fact that I hate EJ compositions.
A Place In Time and Nevermore are related tracks, in the sense that they flow into eachother and have a similar mood, despite the fact that the orchestration differs.
Ghost Beside My Bed is a more powerful rock piece (finally). Darker and moodier, this comes closer to the Norlander/Rocket Scientists school, with an enormously powerful chorus, that etches itself in your brain in a matter of seconds. The duet of Lane with herself (hurray for stereo sound) is funny. In my personal opinion there should have been more tracks like this on the album.
The harmony vocals on the Crosby/Nash track Critical Mass which Lana performs with her brother Greg Phelps, sound beautiful, and are worth a compliment. The subsequent Wind on the Water is a really nice composition as well, although the tempo is quite low (but hey, it's a ballad ;-). The Rivermaid, another original composition, is not quite my cup of tea, it sounds too cliché, as does the next track Autumn Leaves. Innocent When You Dream is even worse. This Tom Waits cover is of the type that drunken assholes in harbour pubs barf at you when they miss their girlies.
Supertramp's If Everyone Was Listening is way better, and is performed very well, almost makes you forget the original.
In conclusion: mixed feelings about this disk. It contains a couple of good tracks (with Ghost Beside My Bed as a winner) and a couple of bad ones (in my personal opinion of course). Performance and production are high standard though.

Country of Origin: Netherlands Format: CD Record Label: Popera / Bee & Bee Records Catalogue #: VDLR9807 Year of Release: 1998 Time: 21:34 Info: Bee & Bee Records

I only knew about Dutch band Vandolor (or rather project around singer / guitarist / keyboard player Dolores Bremer) from a book. I was glad I could get to know the music when I was sent this mini CD. Especially Dolores' voice that was described as a blend of Nico and Janis Joplin made me curious. I know it's quite old, but I still would like to bring it to your attention.

The opening track is an emotional rock song. Not a ballad, but a beautiful, sad song. (I like sad songs, I should add.) A strange middle part with a slow guitar solo, while the drums are getting faster and faster. Unusual, as the guitar melodies are turned to the background for a while. Slow and still powerful - I like that very much.
In contrast, the second is a very driving track, sudden musical changes with raw vocals remaining fairly constant. This kind of music makes you really listen - it simply demands that you listen. Not in a freaky jazz-fusion way, but simple because it is exciting.

Yes, Dolores' voice is unusual. More Nico than Joplin, but better, as how personal her voice was, Nico could not really sing, and Dolores can. It's a relief to hear a voice like this among all those high-pitched male voices you hear too often in prog. They Talk About You Anyway is more of a rock song at first, but still a lot is happening. Narrow Minded is heavier. It has a full sound. A bit of pomp rock, really, but that is not the correct term to describe the whole sound.

I don't know whether to take the fifth track serious or not. The intro are what the title implies - babbling and talking on sound effects. For a song as short as this one, I think it's a long intro. The middle part of the song is a variation on the Seven Dwarves' theme... Yes, the "hey ho, hey ho"... It's a short story, but it's more a part of a long story. A joke, or a serious introduction to a serious story.

Like I said, the music is (very) melodic. It's not very complex, but it has very nice and sometimes sudden changes in tempo.
On a few occasions I have the feeling the drums don't really fit the music, like they're drumming a different song, or it might also have something to do with the production - it's like the drums are apart from the rest of the music. On the other hand, this is one of the things that make you realize the music has something special. On most records, drums don't grab my attention at all - it's there and that's it. Not on this disc.

The next Vandolor CD is going to be a full-length album. I am very much looking forward to it, only the rumour that Dolores won't do the vocals, did not make me very happy. Well, it's the overall musical result of course, but I like her voice so much! First she is emotional in a tormented way, then she is aggresive. A voice like that mixed with music like this - it makes the music more emotional than an average singer would. Dolores has something special.

Conclusion: 7 out of 10.

Country of Origin: Switzerland Format: CD Record Label: Musea Records Catalogue #: FGBG 4320.AR Year of Release: 2000 Time: 65:05 Info: Deyss e-mail

Remember that Swiss band that in the mid Eighties had a minor success (well, in our small progressive world that is) or at least gained popularity with their Vision In The Dark album? (Note: track 7 on this CD is an early instrumental version of a song on that album.) I always thought they didn't have a lot to contribute to the prog world, as their music was very much like contemporary Marillion. Typical neo-prog, which I heard enough of at that time.

Now we got this CD from Musea Records. The cover already states what we can expect: 1978 and 1979 recordings. A couple of things should be mentioned before I continue. First of all, we only got the booklet and CD, not the inlay. But then the booklet was too thick to fit in a normal jewel case, so I had to use a case for a double CD. Weird, I thought, but later I learned that this release is supposed to be a double CD. No second CD is mentioned in the booklet, so I can't tell you anything about that.
About that booklet... It's got not less than 52 pages! It contains old photographs of the band and a story which I think was written by one of the former members. In French! Now if you want to sell your records abroad, then I would suggest people translate those often very interesting stories into English.

OK, that's that. Now the music. First of all, it's instrumental. And it reminds me very much of Marillion in their early years. Or should I say very early years? It's like I am listening to a young band making music heavily influenced by or based on a combination of a lot of Genesis and a bit of Hawkwind, but less complex and a bit modern. Same thoughts I had when I heard those old Marillion tapes.
A difference is that Deyss wrote this in 1978 and 1979, more than a year before Marillion did things like this. Very melodic stuff, mostly done by guitar, long passages and a bit trancematic like Hawkwind.

So, how much is this recording worth for the prog world we're in now? Well, if you like this kind of music that was very popular in Britain in the early Eighties, you should definitely have a listen. Deyss fans will probably already have it by now. For the rest it's very nice but not stunning. It's a good document, and could have had a lot more attention if it was released properly instead of a tape, since for its time (prog was very out of fashion in that time) it contains some fresh sounding music.

Conclusion: 6 out of 10.

Country of Origin: Finland Format: CD Record Label: Own Production Catalogue #: None Year of Release: 2000 Time: 25:28 Info: Bride Adourned

Bride Adorned is a Finnish metal band with compositions heavily rooted in classical music and classical themes. The obvious reference then is Symphony X. This demo CD clearly shows compositional skills, but the production (especially the mix) are very amateuristic. Too bad, since the concepts are quite good.

Normally, when a production of a demo album is not up to standards, this can be forgiven. In this case however, the fact that the balance of the mix is completely off is really annoying. The choir sets in at peak volume, and the lead vocals are sometimes hardly audible, as is the case with some of the lead guitar. This is really a pity, since the band definitely has some potential. Especially the choir arrangments are worth a compliment, though the use of the choir is a bit overdone on the album (a bit more room for the regular compositions with guitar or keyboard solos would have been in order).

As stated in the intro, the music is best described by a reference to Symphony X. The chorus (sung by a choir) of the first track, together with the symphony orchestra-like keyboard work, are really nice. The verses however are almost inaudible and the drumming and rhythm guitar are quite unimaginative. You get the impression that the songs are constructed a couple of bars at a time, which are later merged together but didn't quite fit. This is a problem throughout the album. The second song opens promising, a good melody line, combined with a good rhythm, but just before the choir sets in, the tempo changes mildly, where you have the impression it should have stayed the same. The rest of the song does not feel like an entity again.
The third track, Bridewell, opens with a tight, Bachian, keyboard and drum line. The use of the choir as a kind of second keyboard is overdone, the track could have done without. Especially the vocal line after the first break is nice, but too soft and overkilled by the choir. Finally, the last track again opens with a nice uptempo keyboard line in the style of Bach, and a bit more Dream Theater-like part follows (though their complexity is never reached). The quiet middle section is a nicely flowing melody, but here the vocal shortcomings of the lead vocal are audible.

The band has potential, but has much to learn. I know I am highly critical in this review, but that should be taken as a sign of interest (trust me, a lot more bands which get a 6 sound better but are much less interesting). The two composers should work together to create a single track, I have the impression that ideas are randomly incorporated. Also the use of the choir, though powerful and well arranged, should be reduced to give some more room to solos on the guitar and keyboard (as the last track already does more). Finally, the production and mix should be much, much better. This is too amateuristic. Due to all these shortcomings I cannot give them a higher mark then I do, but I would be very interested to see what happens if they can invest some more time and money in better recording facilities.

Conclusion: 4.5 out of 10.