All in all this is a reasonable start.

Definition: Lucid Dream "A state in which an individual for a prolonged amount of time, is aware they are dreaming whilst they sleep".

Lucid Dreaming and especially their guitarist Till OverboreBel (Elvenpath) was fascinated by this phenomena and decided to incorporate it into a new metal opera project called 'The Chronicles' of which this is merely the first part! This opera is based on the first two books of Lloyd Alexander's Welsh mythic story 'The Chronicles Of Prydian', which concerns classic Welsh folk tales and mythology.

Till asked a few friends to help him with his vision and fellow Elvenpath guitarist Oliver Rossow, Synchronic guitarist Michael Petrick and Philipp Koch of Opalessence on drums all readily agreed to give him a helping hand. Then it was down to finding the vocalists for the various character parts, enter then Jutta Weinhold (ex-Zed Yago), Alexx Stahl (Roxxcalibur), Leo Stivala (Forsaken) and Thassilo Herbert (Dragonsfire), who all put in some excellent vocals as we listen to the eleven tracks that make up this release.

As I'm not familiar with the 'Prydian' tales I cannot comment on whether the band get close to relaying the stories accurately; however the music is well played and all the performances by the musicians are tight and exuberant. So what of the songs themselves? Well standouts include 'The Quest For The White Pig' with it's folk metal leanings, 'Motherless Child' and its Maiden-esque guitar work, 'To Caer Dathyl' which gallops along at a hell of a clip and features all of the various vocalists who join together and take their different roles in this twelve minute epic presentation. Finally there is 'Side By Side' and 'Swords Of Prydian', which are more measured types of song, both of them slowing things down perfectly and breaking up the faster heavier tracks on the album into more manageable slices.

Now for a bit of a gripe. Though I did like this album, I also felt that apart from the two songs I mentioned, for the most part each song was played at mostly the same pace, so that they all started to sound very similar after a while and this sameness stopped this CD from being the outstanding work it promised to be. For album number two I hope that Lucid Dreaming employ more of the slower songs because that is where the song writing on this album really excels.

Still, all in all this is a reasonable start...

Ian Johnson