Summary
The second album by this small orchestra lead by Bela Ella. The previous one Spartacus was throughly influenced by Triumvirat. The cover is by Marco Bernard of the Finnish progressive rock magazine Colossus.

The music
The opener of the album is the by far longest track and also the title track. The track opens with light classical stuff, very melodic and not progressive. There is a lot of variation melodywise with passages being alternated and the musicians taking the foreground one by one. At times the drumming is maybe a little too straightforward, but in the more bombastic passages it sounds more involved. After three minutes we come to a very quiet passage, totally unlike the merry first three minutes. The music here reminds me mostly of the Fall Of The House Of Usher by Alan Parsons. Then the music becomes more involved and the Emersonian keyboards take the fore for a while and now we are into something that most people would call progressive rock. I think the references to Triumvirat/ELP are a bit less than on the previous album, there are some dark overtones and the lighter material is more classical. Along the way the music changes character regularly but not too often. Just before 6 minutes for instance a wailing guitar sets in and the drums start to pound. In the name of variation, the trumpets take over while a carpet of keyboards takes care of the background. Personally I do not like the drumming as present in (wind) orchestra's. Usually they restrict themselves to tic-tic-tic or something and than I feel it is better left out. There are some passages like that here as well, but fortunately most of the time it is an integrated part of the whole adding to the music. The guitar solo halfway is quite dissonant and after that the music is strongly reminiscent of Alan Parsons until the meandering solo on the organ. After an extensive solo on the keyboards in jazzrock style, the classical stuff of the beginning reenters the stage. Very lighthearted, but quite nice as well. Afterwards we et another rather merry sounding passage, but less light. The final features some vocals as well, but they are sparse on this record. They are sung in a choir. This track already indicated quite well what you can expect from this band. Overture Fantasy, also not a very short track, slightly under 10 minutes is an up-tempo piece with good variation in the melodies and also some complex interplay. Bit of question and answer playing in there. After nine minutes most of the passages are quite well-known and the repetition to be a bit too much. Fortunately the song ends with some swirling piano playing. Awakening is more introspective. A bit of a fairytale in music with some lounge jazz piano playing, all slow and relaxed. The strings add a sad note. But notwithstanding the low profile, there's a lot going on, but only subtly. Over The Clouds is a bit too frolic for my tastes. It does have a lot of swing. Again not what most people would call prog, because it's dominated by the wind instruments and there's little keyboards and no guitar here. Dance Suite is over ten minutes and consists of various danceable tunes alternated. A bit musical like the music here. The music is strongly thematic but the styles can differ: there's even some speedy twenties music in here and a rondo. I'm not too fond of this kind of music myself. With Big Run we return to prog rock where the Emerson influences are quite strong again. Lots of fast soloing and sometimes the music tries to have some swing. Again, not my cup of tea. Merry-Go-Round has some percussive piano playing which I tend to like and againa some nice merry melodies. The female vocals, the first vocals after the first track, are high and clear. The song is pacey and light. The pace continues into the more bombastic The King. I prefer the music in this way. Accessible music, but it has something, a drivenness. The monarch is not really a nice guy as we can read from the lyrics. It is not surprising that the booklet inside depicts Versailles. The final track is a short instrumental called Farewell. It surprisingly contains electric guitar and is one of the nicer tracks on this album.

Conclusion
Well, in a way the album seems more balanced than the previous. Unfortunately for me, after a good opening with the long suite and the two follow ups that were quite okay, the middle part is not so interesting for me, the music being a bit too light and frolic. The final two tracks are good again and Merry-Go-Round is okay. On the whole that makes for half and half in my book, but if you don't mind happy tunes too much,m this might be for you. If you happened to like the previous album, I think you'll still want to hear this one, but the character of the album is a bit different. For one, there are few dark passages.

Jurriaan Hage