Adventure: Caught In The Web

Adventure, it's a simple name, yet one which evokes thoughts of everything from "Boy's Own" tales, to space bound journeys, or mythical ocean voyages riddled with peril and danger. And yet this third, and first for five years, album from Sweden's Adventure takes us through far more Earth based stories of everyday pitfalls and social challenges; the album's name, Caught In The Web, a neat play on words, with the "web" in question being the one we all while away hours and hours on every day. Opening, scene setting, track, "All Aboard", segues seamlessly into "Fast Train", both again metaphors for the "use it, bin it, get rich quick, fame at all cost" culture we live in and yet while the themes and lyrics may be modern and current, the music transporting them to your ears is traditional Progressive Rock with the merest hints of something heavier, a sprinkle of Uriah Heep here, a whisper of Threshold there, the odd fluting float of Jethro Tull bouncing by.

Vocalists Terje Craig, Elen Catherine Hopen Furunes and guest, Roar Nygard, combine and separate beautifully, a mix of solo performances and male and female vocal interplay adding perfectly to the soaring keyboard work of Odd Roar Bakken and Steve Howe like guitar forays from Terje Flessen. However as you pass through "Solitude" (a lyrical theme across the album), it is the theatrical arrangements which drive the songs on, the loosely conceptual pieces arriving with added weight and poise. "Empty Minds" provides more than a little oomph, although as much through flutes as riffing guitars, while "Test Of Time" is happier combining Heep like Hammond to a more Neo-based keyboard approach. However right across Caught In The Web - which comes housed in a simply stunning cross between a "find it" game and a Rodney Matthews alike artwork of the year contending sleeve courtesy of Tor-Erik Ledang - it is gently Progressive themes and ideas which bring the songs to their wonderful conclusions.

Caught In The Web is a magnificent Adventure and one worth exploring and reliving on countless occasions. If you're looking for me, that's where I'll be....

Track Listing
1. All Aboard
2. Fast Train
3. Solitude
4. Empty Minds
5. Simple Man
6. For Elise
7. Test For Time
8. Watching The Glow
9. The Virus
10. Caught In The Web - Part 1
11. Caught In The Web - Part 2
12. Hope
13. Into The Dream

Added: July 31st 2014
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Adventure online
Hits: 3352
Language: english

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