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Luca Turilli’s Dreamquest is not a side-project; in fact, this arrangement is just another outlet for many ideas which do not fit Rhapsody’s sound or Luca’s own solo lineup. One thing that sets this album and Dreamquest’s sound apart from Luca’s other projects is the debut of Luca on keys as well as guitar. His stunning keyboard playing seems to fit very well with his well-established metal guitar sound.
As you may know from Luca’s other works, he tends to focus on conveying emotion. Many times the way in which Luca conveys emotion is to combine other styles of music. For instance, the song “Virus (tracks 2 to 10)” combines electronic music with a touch of Goth and metal. This creates the feelings of urgency and fear, or maybe just the introduction of conflict to his fantasy universe.
I like Luca’s complex writing style, I like the instrumentation, and I find that the general ideas of his work can be grasped with only a few listening experiences. I also find myself very impressed by his musical abilities. However, I found this album to be very cumbersome and difficult to listen to. First of all, twelve different movements are divided over 99 tracks; on average, a single track is around 16 seconds long. This makes the album very difficult to listen to without listening to the whole thing at once. If that was Luca’s intent, I think it would have been better to have put the entire album on one track.
Another problem with the album (mostly having to do with the insane amount of tracks) is that it is not MP3 player friendly. Many people, me included, enjoy to randomly shuffle their entire music library rather than taking the time to decide on an album to listen to. When you randomly shuffle this album with others, you end up getting little snip-it’s of this astounding music between other artists. This unfortunately takes the conceptual work out of context and makes the music listening experience too brief to really enjoy. Although I spend a great deal of time listening to music on my home computer, I find that I listen more intently on the go, and I think that I could have given this album a better review if it were more MP3 player friendly.
Tracks include
• Introspection (1)
• Virus (2-10)
• Dreamquest (11-19)
• Black Rose (20-27)
• Lost Horizons (28-36)
• Sospiro Divino (37-44)
• Shades Of Eternity (45-52)
• Energy (53-60)
• Frozen Star (61-70)
• Too Late (71-79)
• Dolphins Heart (80-87)
• Gothic Vision (88-99)
NOTE: Movement names are followed by the track numbers they encompass
The music sounds good, but the album could have been arranged better, making it friendly for digital music listeners. Can’t wait to hear more from this stunning group otherwise.
Rating: 69
Reviewed By: Brian Grefrath