Home Artist links Label link

Strangers On A Train: The Key Part I - The Prophecy

Artist:	Strangers On A Train: The Key Part I
Title:	The Prophecy
Label:	Verglas VDCD 011
Length(s):	63 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1997
Month of review:	02/1998

Line up

Clive Nolan - keyboards, vocals
Tracy Hitchings - vocals
Karl Groom - guitars, bass

Tracks

1)	Arrival	3.40
2)	Sacrifice	7.10
3)	New World	3.06
4)	Silent Companion	2.25
5)	Crossing The Wasteland	3.53
6)	Perchance To Dream	4.29
7)	Lightshow	3.36
8)	Occam's Tears	8.07
9)	Losing A Hold On Life	3.58
10)	From The Outside In	5.27
11)	Duel	4.30
12)	From The Inside Out	6.40
13)	Healing The Rift	4.00
14)	The Key	2.43

Summary

Almost nosalgia, this album is one of the very first "obscure" progressive that I bought when it actually came out in 1990. The album has been rereleased before by SI Music (on which it was also the first release). I do not have that version, but I do know that all three CDs have very different artwork (the best of which can be admire on this cd, by the way). This album is from the period that I really could listen a number of times to everything I bought. Now this "honour" is reserved almost strictly for review albums, of which this is one.

The music

The Key Part 1 is a semi-classical suite with lots of keyboards and piano and some vocal additions by Tracy Hitchings, who recently became the singer of Landmarq. The album is a typical concept album with rather vague lyrical content. One has to get used to Tracy's singing. She sings emotionally, but at times she does overdo it a bit: the Ave, Qui A Deita in Sacrifice sounds like she has to take a breath with every syllable. Still she sings this song quite well, but the problem reoccurs further on in New World and I have to say the vocals do sound rather artificial, like she's reading it from a card. The track does feature one my favourite motives: the piano used as a percussive instrument. The song ends with church organ and spaceous guitar work. Drawing comparisons with later Nolan work it is already clearly audible that dramatism figures largely in the musical picture. I wouldn't be surprised if some people would say overdramatised, but regardless some of the music on this album has a freshness and openess, but also a naivete to it. Also because of the vague lyrics the music seems at times to be more suited for young people than for more mature people, but I might be mistaken here. Continuing with the run down of the songs, Silent Companion is particularly appealing with some very nice melodies and a good build up. The follow up, the hasty Crossing The Wasteland features again that percussive piano and has a prominent and rather funky bass. Perchance To Dream is a rather subdued instrumental with again a great melody. At the end Tracy vocalizes a bit. After the rather forgettable Lightshow, we get the strangest track of the album called Occam's Tears. Weird percussives and vocals and again this is a song build upon percussive piano with some violin-like synthetic parts. One does wonder how the music of this would sound when played with an orchestra. The repetitive melody of the song is quite attractive and in the song a melody from an earlier track reoccurs. After the introspective Losing A Hold On Life we come to a vocal track From The Inside Out. I'm not fond of this track. The reason for this is that the song is too obvious and might as well have been written for some musical. The chorus is still okay, but the verses really put me off. After the hasty The Duel with the first real rock guitar of the album. After this we get the ethereal opening of From The Inside Out the companion of From The Outside In. From The Inside Out is a rather friendly and soothing song with a rather obvious melody and sung yearningly by La Hitchings. Very dramatic and again music that would have fit well in a number of musicals. Not bad, but like I said a bit obvious, but the guitar work is worthwhile adding some rough edges to the music. The next track is one of the better ones on the album, the organic Healing The Rift and which features some heavy guitar work as well. The Key recaptures some of the opener Arrival and closes the album.

Conclusion

Nothing wrong with rereleasing this album, since it contains some of the best things Nolan has done. I remember preferring it over part two of the series. Part three is still in the making. Orchestral sounding progressive with only little guitar and bass and no drums, but the keyboards and piano make up easily for this. One is tempted to compare this album with the efforts of The Enid, but I have to admit that the latter is both more mature and melodically less interesting.