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This is a frustrating album. Here we have an album of well-produced, well-played music made by musicians of obvious talent and passion, and it just is not interesting or engaging at all. The last Winds album I heard was Reflections of the I, which I thought was good, just too intellectual for its own good. Well Winds have gone even further in the cerebral direction, and thus have become far less entertaining.

This is prog, which can be done well in service to good songs, or badly, for its own sake. This is the latter, with melodies and riffs lurching all over the place, trying to create art by adding more, rather than refining what is there. This is admittedly less wanky than most prog, but still, Winds never manage to create anything even remotely catchy or compelling. There are some good riffs here, and a good bit of interesting mideast-style melody, and the vocals are excellent. But again, this is music with no songs, just a bunch of parts with no whole. Prog shouldn't have to be like this.