This is an album that really needed time to grow on me. This promo has been in my cd player for the almost two months now. At first I was pretty disappointed, but listening closer I began to hear many small touches and new melodies began to show themselves. By now the album has grown to become pretty damn great.
I think the production is why it took me so long to get into it. It is somewhat dry and dusty which makes the whole record sound very raw. I usually prefer a clearer and thicker production to this. But the good thing is that the songs are strong enough to stand on their own.
This release is definitely not as close to the
Royal Hunt style as the solo release by Andre Andersen. Actually it's nowhere even close to
Royal Hunt and for me that makes this one even more interesting.
John West uses his voice in a more unpolished and powerful way here. In some songs his voice is able to convey huge emotion and in others the power of his voice rules the song.
The album is a concept album, which deals with the journey of a native American spirit through time. Of course no lyrics with this promo so I won't try to go into details with the concept. Let me just say that the album progresses nicely with each song and keeps the overall atmosphere throughout.
Some of my favourite songs include
Soul of the beast with its excellent solos,
Warrior spirit with its awesome changes and guitar work and the beautiful ballads
Soul to soul and
Mystic wings.
When worlds collide has guest appearances by the two keyboard vituosos,
Vitalij Kuprij and Andre Andersen. Naturally the track starts out with a wild keyboard solo :) The song has a very nice drive and cool keyboard solos throughout.
Stand sentinel is my favourite of the album. It's a somewhat epic track with a running time close to 8 minutes. There are many beautiful passages in this song and both John's singing and the guitar playing are very emotional.
Sleep of the dead is my least favourite song. It is also the hardest track on the album. I miss a little melody in this one and the chorus doesn't catch me.
Earth Maker is a very guitar driven album. Good thing then, that it's
Chris Caffery (Savatage) who does all the work along with Metal Mike Chlasciak (Halford). A heavy and powerful rythm guitar, slow and emotional or fast solos and many little touches that I only noticed after many listens, it's all here to enjoy.
Overall this is a great album. It has grown immensely since I heard it for the first time. The way
John West sings gives the album another dimension and shows that he really cares for this one. I've read that he's already writing and recording songs for his next solo release. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with next.
Written by
Steen Tuesday, October 29, 2002
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