2001 - "Beyond the Reach of Dreams"
(39 min, 'Lunar Chateau' / "Musea")
Olympus Mons (instr.) 3:56
Far From Home 3:52
Consequences-II5:40
Solange In Rio (instr.) 4:33
Beyond the Reach of Dreams (instr.) 10:01 (in 3 parts)
Zeta Reticuli 11:01 (in 3 parts, too)
Notes: Olympus Mons - this is the name of the biggest volcano in our solar system, located on the planet Mars (track 1); Zeta Reticule is the name of a star system located 37 light years from Earth (track 6).
All music & lyrics by Novak Sekulovich. Arranged & produced by Lunar Chateau. Recorded and engineered by Bob Friedman at "Sound Sound". Mixed by N. Sekulovich at "Phaeto" studio, WI, USA.
Line-up:
Novak Sekulovich - keyboards, lead vocals;
Paul Sekulovich - bass, backing vocals;
Milo Sekulovich - drums & percussion.
Prog-charade: find a difference between the same line-ups to win nothing to raise your IQ.)
Looking at the booklet of the second Lunar Chateau album before I heard to it
(when I listened to their
first CD) and being not too happy with a nice and quite original, but
accessible, on the whole,
Neo-sounding "Lunar Chateau", I was amazed with the booklet contents
of the "Beyond the Reach
of Dreams" album. I've thought, no matter this one is 20-minutes shorter
since there are practically four
instrumentals on it, - all lyrics of Consequences-II is just a quatrain,
according to the booklet's version, -
with a playing time about 25 min, that is almost two third of the album total
playing time. After reading
the first review (above) it becomes obvious why I was amazed seeing that most of
the Lunar Chateau
album tracks are pure instrumentals. First, however, please allow me to mark the
two most noticeable
drawbacks (same, as you'll see later) on this album. Although all the various
keyboards themes,
passages, etc beginning with the second track, as well as the majority of them
on the first one, are free
of any influences, Novak decided (for some reason, and I just wonder for which?)
that the very first
motives on the album should sound in Emerson's typical manner. Keith, however,
was (and still is,
though) the only one who can create kind of royal pompous passages with very
fanfares-alike sounds.
Fortunately, these worse than just useless borrowings sound only three times on
the band's second CD:
in the very beginning of the first instrumental with repeating the same theme
closer to the end of it and
on the last track (not so obviously this time, though). I really wonder why a
musician who has his own
original way of composing and especially playing the piano still plays the game
of imitation! Of course,
Olympus Mons, taken as a whole, is a very good and original instrumental, as
well as almost all the other
compositions on the "Beyond the Reach of Dream" album. Far From Home
is the only piece that could
remind you of most of the songs from the band's debut album. It's clear,
however, that this one sounds
better than any early Lunar Chateau songs (exactly), though Far From Home
doesn't even contain
a separate instrumental part. A second drawback I've mentioned above I find here
too. Despite the fact
that Novak is the lead vocalist on this album instead of Paul, their voices are
too similar not to notice
some (this time just slight, though) Greg Lake's inflections on Far From Home
once again. The second
part of Consequences really consists of mostly instrumental canvas and the only
thing here that comes
off a bit unexpected is that the quatrain I meant is repeated twice. It doesn't
really matter, though,
as instrumentally this track is the second among the album's three winners,
including two short
instrumentals. These are the opening track I just talked about, and especially
an effective thing brothers
have dedicated to (a woman) Solange in Rio (don't know, if it's done specially
or not). This one
demonstrates the band at their most tight playing and a high level of
musicianship of each brother.
Especially I liked a thoughtful work of the bassist there. Two remaining
compositions are the longest the
band ever created. But while the album's last song Zeta Reticule, being even
filled with vocals almost
entirely, is the best Lunar Chateau song (though it also contains some synth
solos a-la Emerson),
the previous instrumental is what I didn't expect to hear from Lunar Chateau at
all. Don't the guys have
enough time really to put into this (so short!) album, - the first since their
already seven years standing
debut, - something different than this 10-minutes self-titled track - free of
any ideas, almost? Excluding its
third part with acceptable mellow piano passages somewhere 'in space', the first
two parts represent one
of the strangest things I ever heard. This is nothing but a kind of
non-committal (ambient, new-age,
spacey?), empty even with regard to the styles in parenthesis, an instrumental
that has nothing to do
at all with the music of Lunar Chateau and Progressive in general (at least it
had nothing to do with the
LC music until now). Even with another simple song like Far From Home instead of
Beyond the Reach
of Dream and also without those few borrowing themes this album would be really
excellent. What is
more, then it would be one (if not the only) of the most unique albums created
within Neo Progressive.
So, if "Lunar Chateau" is really just a good, original Neo album, its
second 'brother' could have all the
five 'excellent' stars in the rating had it not been for those two drawbacks.
Back to Novak's playing the
piano, "Beyond the Reach of Dreams" also contains several of his
wonderful, original piano passages.
Well, I'm just a reviewer... While there is a few significant critical points in
my reviews on the two Lunar
Chateau albums, the majority of Neo-lovers would not probably even notice these
things. And bearing
in mind that Lunar Chateau performs one of the most unusual (unique in some
ways) Neo Progressive
I ever heard, I'd highly recommend to all the open-minded Neo-heads to get hold
on both albums
described to discover one of the most unexpected and interesting bands of this
progressive sub-genre
to be amazed at their specific creation. Finally, I wish the third 'brother' of
the two previous albums by
the three brothers of Lunar Chateau to be the strongest among them.
VM. May 31, 2001
