TRANSATLANTIC: Kaleidoscope (2014)

 Starting this post I should make clear that I'm not a fan of 'Transatlantic'. I believe they have some very good moments, but I can't say I'm fond of their music in general.
  As some of you know already, Transatlantic is a Prog-Rock side-project which can be easily characterised as "supergroup" because of the really great musicians which are participating in it. I'm talking about Mike Portnoy on drums, Pete Trewawas on bass, Neil Morse on vocals, keyboards and guitars, and Roine Stolt on vocals and guitars. A few more musicians participating as well, playing a few more instruments, like cello for example.
  Now, let's take a look at the album: You can find it in two versions: Normal (1 cd), and Special Edition (2 cd's). For those who are interested, I strongly recommend the Special Edition, because the second cd is including only cover versions, and it's a great one!
 The Cd opens with the 25 minute-long Epic song 'Into the blue', on which the members of the band are making a demostration of their musical skills. It is a compex song, with many turns and rhythm changes, but not so much of inspiration in my opinion. Next comes the rather mellow 'Shine', a Neil Morse's composition, which is a good one but  there was no reason to take it up to 7.30 minutes I think.
 Next comes 'Black as the Sky' on which Roine Stolt in singing, and the small keyboards intro brings to mind Marillion's early works. The song overall is a very good one, with nice melody, and a very tight rhythm.
'Black as the Sky' is followed by 'Beyond the Sun' which is the shortest song of the album, and it is a very sweet and nice melody, with Neil Morse on vocals. The album closes with one more 'Epic' song, the 32 minute-long 'Kaleidoscope'. Again a very complex song, with many style and rhythm changes, and also many jazz influences. If I had to compare the 2 'Epics', I would say that 'Kaleidoscope' is better in every aspect than 'Into the Blue'. These 5 songs are included in the Cd, which have a total running time of almost 76 minutes.
 And now let's take a look to the second Cd, which as I mentioned above you can find it only in the Special Version.
 It contains 8 songs, and all of them are cover versions. But most of them are really great covers, totally worth to give some extra money in order to buy the Special Edition. So here, Transatlantic covers songs from Procol Harum, ELO, Yes, Elton John, King Crimson, The Moody Blues, The Small Faces and Focus. The second cd has a total running time of almost 40 minutes, which gives us an altogether running time for both cd's close to 2 hours.
If I had to give a rating I could give 3 stars out of 5. (Of course that's according to my personal opinion and music likings).
Here you can see the whole tracklist for both cd's:
CD 1
1. Into The Blue (25:13)
2. Shine (7:28)
3. Black As the Sky (6:45)
4. Beyond The Sun (4:31)
5. Kaleidoscope (31:53)
CD 2
1. And You And I (Yes cover) (10:45)
2. Can't Get It Out Of My Head (ELO cover) (4:46)
3. Conquistador (Procol Harum cover) (4:13)
4. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John) (3:20)
5. Tin Soldier (Small Faces cover) (3:22)
6. Sylvia (Focus cover) (3:49)
7. Indiscipline (King Crimson cover) (4:45)
8. Nights In White Satin (The Moody Blues cover) (6:13)
 Yesterday I uploaded two songs on my channel in youTube, and I'm adding one of them here in order to listen if you want to...