Band:	Ghost Circus
Album:	Across The Line
Style:	Progressive rock
Release date:	2008
A review by:	Bas

01. Reflection
02. Pathway
03. Holding On
04. To Be
05. Losing Time
06. Through The Darkness
07. Through The Light
    1 - The Calling
    2 - The Choice
    3 - The Essence Of Life
    4 - The Sea Of Shadows
    5 - Soaring Above
    6 - Breaking Through
    7 - The Distance Memory
    8 - the Final Steps
08. Across The Line

Ghost Circus is a collaboration of Chris Brown from Tennessee, USA, and Ronald Wahle from the Netherlands. The two musicians got to know each other over an internet-forum in 2004 and have since been exchanging musical ideas. Yet despite the huge distance the music feels really homogenous, maybe even more so than in most albums recorded with a whole band in the same studio. In 2006 the duo released their first album entitled Cycles and now two years later they bring us their second work Across The Line which is a concept album about a man "crossing the line", or in other words leaving the world of the living and entering the afterlife.

Musically speaking this CD is mainly progressive rock with some metal elements flaring up throughout the album and a few minimal touches of old school alternative rock here and there. In some tracks we can find some obvious Marillion influences.

The strongest part of the album is probably the terrific vocal performance which is flawless. Other very strong aspects include the acoustic guitar passages and the use of keyboard, the drumming is also excellent. All in all there really isn't much that you can object about at all. The songwriting is diverse, mainly focussing on gentle, yet interesting, parts which have an extremely relaxing effect but also sometimes giving room to more aggressive passages, which are the parts I personally prefer on this album. And the instrumental execution is watertight. However the length of the album might be a problem for some. With the whole thing clocking in at around 70 minutes it's a bit too long for my personal taste. 50 minutes would probably have suited better for this one, but I can understand that the musicians didn't want to scrap anything, despite its lengthy playing time there really isn't any filler on here. Also around half an hour goes into the eight-part opus "Through The Light".

Despite all the praise I gave up to now there is also one important downside I have to mention. All the tracks on this CD are very nice to listen to, yet except for the beautiful track "To Be" there isn't a single memorable track at all. As soon as the music faded out and the next track has started it becomes incredibly hard to remember the previous one. So in the end I can't really give this more than 7.7. But it's a very well-deserved 7.7, mind you!

Favourite Track: "To Be", because it's a really beautiful song.