Terra Incognita: Beyond the Horizon

Product Description This is the ground breaking music portion of the book and CD project. Here you have a music CD whose story and lyrics were written by bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson with his author wife Rebecca Moesta. Review It s not unusual for the paths of Science Fiction and Progressive Rock to intersect. There have been a number of times where the work of famous sci-fi writers has been the inspiration for some heady projects. But I can t really remember another project where the writer in this case Kevin J. Anderson actually gets involved with the project to use the musical scope of prog to provide a crossover project for his work. This is the musical interpretation of Anderson s new novel Terra Incognita: Beyond the Horizon. The musicians brought together to create the music go by the name of Roswell Six and consist of: Erik Norlander (keyboards) ROCKET SCIENTISTS, Lana Lane (female lead vocals), Kurt Barabas (bass) UNDER THE SUN and Executive Producer Shawn Gordon. The band is then supported by quite a talented crew: James LaBrie (vocals) DREAM THEATER, Michael Sadler (vocals) SAGA, John Payne (vocals) ex-ASIA, David Ragsdale (violin) KANSAS, Gary Wehrkamp (guitar) SHADOW GALLERY, Chris Quirarte (drums) PRYMARY, Chris Brown (guitar) GHOST CIRCUS, Mike Alvarez (cello) and Martin Orford (flute) IQ. Indeed it s a stellar cast. The music of Terra Incognita was composed and produced by Norlander so it should not be a surprise to hear that there is a ring of familiarity if you are familiar with his other projects. That said this is very much a project with its own distinctive qualities. These 13 tracks, most in the five-minute range are best described as hard-edged symphonic prog; not really prog-metal by any stretch of the imagination but with enough crunchy guitar to satisfy that crowd as well. There are guitars, flutes, violins and keyboards aplenty taking turns at performing solos centre-stage. This is after all a story about war, dragons and ship-wrecks so it needs to be grand and in many cases aggressive. And here the music and multi-vocal delivery really works well presenting us with a larger-than-life panoramic vista. The CD opens with one of the more complex pieces; Ishalem [11:02] the longest track on the disc and there are plenty of musical change-ups here as the story is introduced and it seems everyone, vocalist and instrumentalist gets a chance to shine in the spotlight. From there you can follow along in the booklet where Ander