Neo Prophet - T.I.M.E.

(CD 2015, 62:55, Freia Music)

The tracks:
  1- Horizons(3:12)
  2- Divide And Divine(9:19)
  3- Around The World(5:06)
  4- The Pendulum Swing(4:39)
  5- Generation Games(7:37)
  6- The Hourglass(8:09)
  7- Nemesis(6:49)
  8- The Art Of Aging(1:53)
Orchestral Death:
  9- Part 1: In Social Skies(7:33)
10- Part 2: I Need To Write My Song(1:51)
11- Part 3: The Genuine Me(6:30)

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Neo Prophet is a Belgian prog rock band that started as Neo-Prophet in the year 2005 and was “re-born” and renamed Neo Prophet a couple of years later. Nowadays the four piece band consists of Tom Tas (guitars), Pete Mush (keyboards), Wesley Jacques (drums) and the only original member since the foundation of the band Hans Six (vocals and bass guitar).

The work on the album called T.I.M.E. started in 2013 and the album was finally mixed and mastered by Frank van Bogaert in 2015. The new album contains eleven tracks which all sound very different, just as if every single track has a sound of its own. The music of NP can be best described as a mix of Arena, IQ, Genesis (the old sound with Peter Gabriel), Pendragon, Saga, Asia, Enchant and a little bit of It Bites. The typical and very recognizable voice of Six - which sometimes reminds me of good old Ian Anderson- and the guitar solos and melodies of Tas, dominate the album. Especially Tas' solos in Divide And Divine and The Hourglass are really breathtaking and these two songs are also the musical highlights of T.I.M.E.. Both are very diverse, filled with great melodies, tempo changes and excellent instrumental passages. Other songs which are worth mentioning are: Around The World (very catchy chorus), Generation Games (Arena-like) and the last epic song Orchestral Death. The latter clocks over fifteen minutes and is divided in three parts of which the middle part (I Need To Write My Song) is nothing more than a short (thank God for that) dull acoustic song. T.I.M.E. also contains two “missers”, being the utterly boring acoustic songs The Pendulum Swing and even worse The Art Of Aging. Furthermore I really think that this album would have been a lot better if the album was a little shorter, as some of the songs really go on too long; less is more!!

Having said all that, I still can recommend this album, as T.I.M.E. really is a great prog rock album and if you like the bands I mentioned in this review, then you should really like the new effort by Neo Prophet. Advice: play it loud and skip tracks four, eight and ten!

***+ Martien Koolen (edited by Astrid de Ronde)

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