CD

After many line-up changes since their debut in 1993, the American hard rock band Takara are back with Invitation To Forever, their fifth studio album. Guitarist Neil Grusky succeeded in putting together a new line-up consisting of Björn Englen (bass) and Patrick Johansson (drums), both of Yngwie Malmsteen fame. As a vocalist he enlisted Gustavo Monsanto (ex-Adagio) from Brazil. He completed the current line-up with keyboardist Brook Hansen.

Syzygy is a four piece from Ohio (USA), led by guitarist and leadvocalist Carl Baldasarre. Together with keyboardist Sam Giunta and bassist Al Rolik these friends were in a band called Abraxas - not to be confused with the Polish band with the same name - touring extensively during the seventies but they mainly played covers. This band disbanded in 1983.

String Cheese Incident (SCI) is another band signed by the InsideOut Music-label from the so called Jam Rock scene, just like Umphrey's McGee, but the music of SCI contains much more influences of Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their music is fairly mellow and also influences of folk music can be distinguished. All and all One Step Closer sounds pretty dreamy to me. It lacks balls and most certainly the expected progressive touch as with Umphrey’s McGee.

Stream Of Passion (SoP) used to be an international band, founded by Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon). After their debut Embrace The Storm and a live album/DVD, Arjen Lucassen, guitarist Lori Linstruth and keyboardist Alejandro Milan left the band, leaving vocalist-violinist Marcella Bovio (Mexico), bass player Johan van Stratum and drummer Davy Mickers - both from the Netherlands - with a dilemma: to go on or to break up.

Strawberry Fields is one of the many projects by the Polish musician Wojtek Szadkowski, who is especially known for his work with Collage and Satellite. Another of his projects is Peter Pan. Robin, the beautiful singer in Strawberry Fields happens to be the girlfriend of Peter Pan’s guitarist Radek Chwieralski and thus she became involved in this project.

Spektrum is a new all-star band from Sweden featuring Hansi Cross (Cross, guitars, keyboards), Olav Andersson (Grand Stand, keyboards, acoustic guitar, vocals), Göran Johnsson (Grand Stand, drums, vocals, guitar, keyboards), Göran Fors (Galleon, bass, Taurus pedals, vocals) and the female vocalist Lizette van Panajott.

Catchy choruses, up-tempo tunes, good, bright vocals by Jaap Warmenhoven and lots of nice hooks. Is Skip The Rush a progressive band? No, not really. Think of The Police for instance. These Dutch guys put a whole lot of energy into All Is Fit For Tonight and it reflects in their music equally. Their sound is quite ‘international’ and if they would have been British or American, they would probably have had a major contract.

Sufferion - Hamartia Of Prudence is the third full-length studio album by the Finnish melodic gothic doom band Silentium. It's both a concept album and a theatrical piece of music, produced by no one less than Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish). The story is about two lovers, Antracon and Prudence, tempted and misleaded one after the other by the demon Scoria to give up their soul in exchange for eternity and salvation from pain and agony. A very sad love story indeed, partly spoken and partly sung.

Trip To Innerself by Siddhartha is the first progressive album from Turkey that I’ve ever heard. There are probably more progressive bands in Turkey, but if you realize that this cd was recorded in the summer of 1998 and mastered in New York some ten years later, you may conclude that it wasn’t easy for Siddhartha to get their music released. Finally, a new American label decided to take a chance.

Though bearing different names like Trojan, these five people now known as Shy are very experienced musicians. Their first record was Once Bitten, Twice Shy recorded in 1983. The band toured with Twelfth Night, Magnum and Queensrÿche, just to name a few. The founder members are vocalist Tony Mills and guitarist Steve Harris, who wrote practically all the music on Sunset And Vine.