Circle Of Illusion

Once you begin to expand the horizons of music it becomes increasingly difficult for the average reviewer – me – to pigeonhole the music being presented. Unfortunately it also becomes difficult for the masses to appreciate the forms of music that is not in their limited range but perhaps, if done well enough, they may begin to see the wider images available.

This album is part of the now generation that refuses to sit in any one genre but incorporates elements of metal, classical, opera and even Hip Hop and jazz in order to present their ideas meaningfully. Unlike the bands who put strings on an album and label it as ‘Symphonic Metal’ Circle of Illusion have made a truly symphonic piece.
Everything in me suggests that they can’t do it all well, that the weaknesses in their understanding of one or other of the forms will let down the rest but I haven’t managed to prove that theory here – they don’t stretch the limits of their various genres but what they do is played brilliantly and the whole comes together into massive and wide-ranging musical explorations that really work.

The band themselves describe this as “A progressive rock opera for the 21st Century” and the theme of ‘Jeremy’ caught in a cinematic dreamworld is caught with no pretense to reality.
Listening to the album I found that my mind was searching for the images to go with the music – there is a really cinematic quality to the music, as though it was the soundtrack to a grande-fantasy but the music also triggers the images so that after 80 minutes I felt as though I had just watched a wondrous epic.

It almost goes without saying that the playing is of a supreme quality, with massive drumming and overlays of keyboards and guitars that have the listener gasping in admiration and cringing under the depth of the playing but no matter how good the players are, if the music doesn’t have integrity and worth then it all dies of ignominy. Gerald Peter (Composer and Keys) is a master with multilayer keyboards and vocalists Taris Brown and Cara Cole along with Elga Shafran bring the story to life.
Here, the structure of the music is almost classical in nature but with the story told by a series of vocal elements, almost like a ‘Musical’, and the listener is taken on a journey that always keep them involved and on the edge of the seat waiting for the next twist in the tale.

This is thoroughly modern Prog, unlimited in scope or imagination.
In the wrong hands it would be self-indulgent and flatulent but somehow Circle Of Illusion avoid the excesses that gave Prog such a bad name years back and leave us with a wondrous listening experience.