AMARAN'S PLIGHT - Voice in the Light

Amaran's Plight is one of the possible answers to the question: what does Gary Wehrkamp do between two Shadow Gallery albums. What he does is release a conceptual prog rock album, with metal at the ends (i.e. on the first and last songs) together with vocalist DC Cooper (Silent Force, ex Royal Hunt) and two other artists that make fans of sophisticated music take off their hats. Not many of the 76 minutes of Voice in the Light stray too far from the music of Shadow Gallery and none of them is really surprising. The tempo is somewhere between slow and medium, and the unexplainably long instrumental parts bring about a very effective soporific effect (verified!). The keyboard expresses itself almost exclusively in piano sounds, while the guitar is thin, with bashful riffs and solos that hold interest only for shredding aficionados, and I hope that the genius of drummer Nick D'Virgilio has found better occasions to make itself heard. The voice is ok, even great on Turning Point, but after a promising start with Friends Forever, the album quickly sinks into monotony, and has serious odds to quickly fall into oblivion, despite the heavyweight names involved.
(+) some atmosphere, flows effortlessly, sounds pleasant to the ear
(-) long and monotonous instrumentals, ineffective choruses, missing identity

Klawz Nota: 7.5