Thursday, February 4, 2016

GFreedom's 2015 Top-10 Rock & Prog-Rock albums list. (Part.4)

             KARNATAKA: Secrets of Angels

  Karnataka is a Welsh band that was formed in the mid 90’s. Their music style was a melodic Progressive Folk, with many Celtic influences. The band released 3 studio albums before disbanding in 2003. A few years later, Ian Jones (bass) tried to reform Karnataka, and for that reason he found new musicians to include in the band. The results of this new formation are the albums ‘The Gathering Light’ (2010) and ‘Secrets of Angels’(2015).

(Although I have a couple of their albums, I never considered myself as a “fan” of Karnataka, so including ‘Secrets of Angels’ into my 2015’s Top-10 albums is a surprise even for me! :P)

  Let’s take a quick look at the album now:

It includes 8 songs, and has a total running time of almost an hour. The general music style is more powerful than usual, and it includes the wonderful 20-minute long “epic” 'Secrets of Angels', as the album’s closing song.

  The album kicks in with the song ‘Road to Cairo’ which is a total “hit” in my opinion. Strong guitar riffs, beautiful melodies, and many – unexpected - Anatolian influences. Maybe the band’s new Turkish keyboard player wanted to add some Anatolian “essence” in the album, who knows?  ‘Road to Cairo’ is followed by ‘Because of You’, another beautiful composition. Both songs are reminding me of a lighter and a more melodic version of Nightwish. (Not that I can compare the 2 bands, I’m just saying)… The album continues in the same style with ‘Poison Ivy’, another beautiful composition. In a nutshell, all the other songs are more or less in the same style and equally good. (The only exception - so far - is ‘Road to Cairo’ which is the album’s ‘hit’ song).      
  And after almost 40 minutes of listening, it's time for the album’s 20 minute long “epic” song. And what an epic is that! This is the album’s true masterpiece ladies and gentlemen! With a Celtic intro, haunting and beautiful melodies, great vocals, and so many changes that you don’t know what to expect next, ‘Secrets of Angels’ is the album’s most exciting song!

  And when the CD is over, the only thing you want to do is to press “play” again, and listen to it one more time!

A truly wonderful album!
By clicking on the following link you can listen to 'Road to Cairo'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuw8Du9HBHg 

               MYSTERY: Delusion Rain 
This was one of the latest releases of 2015, for which I already wrote a "review" in this blog a couple of months ago. So, in order not to write the same things again, click on the following link to read it:
http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2015/12/new-releases-mystery-delusion-rain-2015.html 
Thank you!

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