CD Review  

Ricocher
 "Cathedral of Emotions"

Rating 85%

reviewed by Charlie O'

Dutch band Ricocher were voted the "Best New Band of 2001" by the Classic Rock Society in 2001. Whether that's good or bad is still open to debate. Indeed, the lyrics were checked by Martin Hudson. This CD, Cathedral of Emotions, is their second, after their debut Quest For The Heartland, released in September 2000.

It would be very easy to pick up on the singer, Erwin Boerenkamps' pronunciation, with English not being his first language, so I won't.

The album opens with the 7 minute epic "Haunted By Dreams" which is reminiscent of Arena, with the pomposity of thrusting keyboards, from John van Heugten, dueling with the normally reticent guitar work of Bart van Helmond. This is a decent song, though what the line "No way out of the mayonnaise" is about is anyone's guess. Second track "Child Inside" is slightly average, a poor mans Arena. Indeed, I can imagine the guitarist throwing some serious faces during his solo on this one, wrenching out every drop of pseudo-emotion. 

"Ideals" is the title of the third track. On this track the band let some of their other influences shine through, namely Marillion and Pendragon, though without hitting the right spot that either of those bands can reach. However, all this is merely a prelude to the albums first proper epic, the title track "Cathedral of Emotions" which clocks in at 10 minutes 33 seconds, on which the band allow their heritage to shine through, without letting it take charge. I'm glad Mr. Hudson took his job seriously, and didn't allow phrases such as "Angels who protected you, lost their wings to fly" and "A rampart in history" to creep in. Strangely enough, my spellchecker recognises "embracement" so what does I know?

Track five "Painting" is a great improvement on the previous songs showing that the band can write with a similar passion to the bands that have influenced them, while "Fugitive" doesn't. Another good track is "Live your Life" because it's slightly different. There are places on this album where you wish it had been mixed differently, and the guitars on this track really needed to be pushed out more, as it is, it sounds like the early IQ mixes.

Track eight "Out of Hands" is the sort of song that gives Prog a bad name, an embarrassing piece of music that won't do them any favours! Just think of Grey Lady Down in their "We must do Marillion" phase. Yeah, we've heard it before, and by listening to the final track, the epic "Mask of Illusions" you can see that the band don't need to stoop that low. This is by far the most interesting track on the album and shows the lads at their best! The 10 minutes laterally fly by.

Hopefully this band will grow, develop their own sound and show the originality that I feel they can achieve... but first they need to know that less is more and guitar powerchords and keyboard solos might be fun to play, but not everyone wants that style!

Da Boyz