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You can call it Stadium Rock…Arena Rock…AOR…but whatever
you want to call it…it’s not dead. Not in Serbia anyway.Serbia
is the home of Srdjan Brankovic guitarist and founding member
of the progmetal band Alogia. Here under the banner Expedition
Delta, Srdjan has pulled together a host of homegrown players
and teamed them up with others from the prog world to come
up with a solo project that might have a little something
for everyone. Among the more familiar guests he’s brought
in include Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery), Erik Norlander
(Rocket Scientists), Joost van den Broek (After Forever),
Sabine Edelsbacher (Eden Bridge), but there are plenty of
others. In fact a total of 21 performers have contributed
to this project. One of the things I liked is that the solo
artists for each song are identified in the liner notes.***
The eleven compositions contained on the disc were all
recorded during 2005 and 2006 but have only just now been
released. Most of the material here is in the three to five
minute range with two tracks in the seven minute range. Musically
Expedition Delta’s musical style tends to fall more in the
genres mentioned above rather than prog metal although there
are segments that are certainly more aggressive. These are
primarily songs built around powerful keyboards and guitar
interplay with plenty of soloing on display. The sound is
big, dramatic, even anthemic, and while there are subtle shifts
in the compositions they tend to stick pretty close to verse
and chorus structure. Not that this is entirely bad, but prog
fans looking for long and involved soloing with dramatic shifts
in time and tempo might want to look elsewhere. It’s perhaps
not surprising that the two most complex songs, at least from
the arrangement side, are the two 7-minute tracks. So if you
are a fan of the musical style created by bands such as Rainbow,
later day Deep Purple, Whitesnake and so forth, then this
will certainly appeal to your tastes.***
Overall I’d be hard-pressed to call the music created
by Expedition Delta progressive rock. It’s a lot closer to
straight forward melodic hard rock with some progressive rock
or symphonic embellishments. But if you happen to be a fan
of that general style or any of the bands mentioned I can
imagine you’ll really enjoy the music created here.
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