Band:	Michael Pinnella
Album:	Enter By The Twelfth Gate
Style:	Neoclassical rock, Progressive rock
Release date:	2004
A review by:	Malcolm

01. The White Room
02. Edge Of Insanity
03. Piano Concerto #1 mvt.1
04. Enter by The 12th Gate
05. Falling From The Sky
06. Welcome To my Daydream
07. Piano Concerto #1 mvt.2
08. Piano Concerto #1 mvt.3
09. Live For The Day
10. Scriabin Etude OP.42 no5
11. Moracan Lullaby
12. Departing For Eternity
13. Cross The Bridge

Michael Pinnella, does it sound familiar?
That's right, it is the keyboarder from the American Progressive Metallers Symphony X, and this is his first solo-album.
Maybe it sounds strange that a keyboarder releases a solo-album, with only instrumental songs for that matter.
Well, it has happen before; Janne Warman from Children of Bodom has released two. Ok, there are some vocals on those albums, but you get the point.

As with all the lager, more famous musicians, I think that adding Bio here is just a waste of time and space. What you have to know about Michael you can read in the Biography of Symphony X here!
So I'll just move on from here and talk you in to this first solo effort.

As you can see, the album got the most beautiful cover, maybe the best I've seen this year, absolutely fantastic. I just can't stop looking at it, brilliant.
Anyway, let's put that aside and finally start listen to the album.
The album starts with a beautiful piano, actually almost the whole song is built up by nice piano (keyboard) parts, mixed together with almost Ayreon-alike space-strange sounds.

There are also some drums on the record, but I can't tell if it's a real drummer or if Michael used a drum-machine.
And I can't hear if there are any guitars either, or if everything is made on the keyboards, but I would think that the last alterative is the one.

You won't get any Symphony X metal on this release; it's just some progressive (hard) rock with touches of classic and even some Jazz.
So you might consider if this is really something for you or not.
Personally I like it, I like the atmosphere around the classic music, and I've always thought that classic music and metal/hard rock fits well together.
And the fact that there are not vocals here just makes the album even better to listen to. It's easier to just sit down and enjoy the great play of Michael.

So if it's still sounds interesting, go to your cd-store and enlarge your cd-collection at once, with this great instrumental (hard) rock album with the amazing cover.
If it's not sounds, at least try a song and see, maybe this can be your relax-album?

Check Out: The whole album, it's hard to pick any strong favourites here.