This is the third album since Luxembourg’s No Name reformed as TNNE (The No Name Experience), and it has taken six years since ‘Wonderland’, as yet again there has been a change in guitarist with the departure of Claudio Cordero (Cast), although in fairness, Cédric Gilis did play on two numbers on the last album, while there is also a new bassist in Stéphane Rosset. This is a concept album where singer Patrick Kiefer has based the lyrics on the book ‘Otherland’ by Tad Williams, with all music by keyboard player Alex Rukavina (the line-up is completed by drummer Gilles Wagner). Kiefer and Rukavina have been there since the very beginning, strange to think their debut album, ‘Zodiac’ is now 30 years old.
This is solid neo prog, bringing in some other elements here and there, but allowing the guitar to rock when it needs to while rarely moving firmly into prog metal, although there are some elements of it here and there. It is complex and complicated, but there are times when I wonder if Patrick has taken on too much as some of the lines appear very wordy and it appears he is struggling to get all the story into the abbreviated lyrics. Consequently it is during the instrumental sections where the band have the most power, as Cédric has a very direct approach, and even when he is providing support to Alex there is no chance of him disappearing into the background. It certainly reminds me of some much of the 90’s scene, and while IQ are an obvious influence, one can also hear Credo and Galahad, and their influences are much more from the British scene than what was taking place in America. This is an album which stays firmly in neo without ever dropping into melodic rock. Patrick has a wonderful vocal style, the music is great, but I wish they had not decided to use a book as the background for this as a different approach to the words being utilised would have had a better overall result. While I do not believe this is solid an album as ‘Wonderland’, it is still worth investigating.
