Surprise(US)
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review by thomas

This is a concept album about some fantasy land called Merryland where evil suddenly shows its ugly face. Yes, it’s as cheesy as it sounds, with witches, kings, evil queens, fairies, manly heroes and womanly princesses. I don’t know if they are really serious about this story – it’s quite silly either way - but what about the music? If one looks at the instrumentation which includes Hammond organ, grand piano, flute, trumpet, gongs, timpani, celeste, bass pedals and pretty much everything else that’s in use in progressive rock, things couldn’t go wrong, right? Sadly the music is as lame as the lyrics and reminds me of Kansas (circa “Leftoverture”), sometimes its just commercial sweetness to the maximum and sometimes it reminds me of Uriah Heep in their worst moments. And their vocal harmonies are amongst the worst I have heard. But isn’t here anything good I hear you ask; well there are a few enjoyable moments, for example a good flute “riff” and some fine percussion work, but nothing can save this album. Downright silly in both music and lyrics. My advice is to stay away from this record.