A two-part album (The Idealist – CD 1 & The Cynic – CD 2) that is all over the place in styles – you'll find prog rock, prog metal, crazy thrash sounds, experimentalness and more!

 

The song are of epic lengths at times and need a close ear or you will soon lose what is going on plus there are so many styles to be found in on e number alone – in fact the opener 'The More We Remember' is over 22 minutes long – not exactly radio single stuff right? Not that they intend to be. There are straight singing vocals and cookie monster type rawpings too to be found on here.

 

You will really have to study the musical and lyrical themes on here since you will miss things as its so involved, long and varied and I can't see many folk being able to take it all in at one listening sitting – it will take several I reckon along with a very concentrative mind too. 'Lovesong' is a quiet beautiful piece whereas 'Monolith – The Ascent' has a heavy metal, folky vibe to it with Nordic like vocal scary harmonies!

 

There's some killer brutal stuff on the second CD like the long-standing closer and I love the continuation of 'Monolith' which in this case is called 'The Descent' with very similar styles to its predecessor that is obviously the idea.

 

We are also treated to a DVD called 'An Acoustic Night At The Chapel' (Live At Progpower Europe 2016) that comes straight from the video camera due to the sound going down somewhat that is actually the bands first ever gig. It's nothing short of cool to say the least with plenty of humbling humour and chatting from Tom de Wit. It's beautifully shot on various cameras – credit to the edit!

 

Nice to see one fan get an exclusive t-shirt and some guest female vocals during 'Dirge' as well as the great audience participation during the closing cut of the night which is 'Anthem'. Lovely bit of fiddle work and even some cool video-screen images too!

 

A nice touch to a cracking package. Well worth investing in.