Next up from Freia is this, a compilation with 8 Dutch progressive rock bands, put together in cooperation with several magazines and webzines. All four parties involved selected 2 unsigned bands who were asked to deliver about 9 minutes of music. And as seems to be standard in this genre, most do that with one track…
But as I have said before, epic songs don´t automatically stand for epic quality. Here I also think it is very depending on your taste whether you like all that is on offer here. I personally like Gallico (a lot of Genesis spiced up with more contemporary sounds resulting in a convincing instrumental track), Profuna Ocean (more modern and better than their debut), Armed Cloud (2 shorter songs which actually rock), Trip Trigger (ditto) and Incidense (I like the interaction of keyboards and guitars here as well as the rhythmic ideas). Also Sylvium is featured. Which also means I am not so much into Thirteen, were I think the vocals are spoiling it for me and Summer Breeze Project. But you might think otherwise, as like I said, this is often a matter of taste. And the same can be said of the variety in sound and production, but that is logical.
Coming back to that epic songs issue, here I also sometimes feel several musical ideas are “glued” together, just so the track hits the 8-10 minute mark. It somehow feels patchy and not logical and organic. But again, you might disagree. To round it off, I always applaud it when unsigned bands are given a chance to reach a bigger audience, so that should be reason enough to hunt this down.