TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA Letters From The Labyrinth

Finally this years most anticipated release is here, well, at least for me it is. The song writing talents of Paul O'Neill and Savatage mastermind Jon Oliva lives on and it's always exciting to hear what they have come up with.  Paul O'Neill describes 'Letters From The Labyrinth' as the "first TSO hybrid album." The overall concept is based on TSO's "Night Castle" (2009) and a dialogue between the wisdom of the past and the hopes for the future, via a correspondence between a child and an old friend of the child's grandfather. On "Letters From The Labyrinth", TSO deals with subjects as broad as humanity's journey through the ages ("Time & Distance"), and as specific as bullying ("Not The Same"), the fall of the Berlin Wall ("Prometheus") and the world banking controversies ("Not Dead Yet"). So what about the music then? Amazing, simply amazing! In my opinion this is the best TSO album to date despite their already impressing back catalogue. The first thing that came to my mind after having heard 'Letters From The Labyrinth' was that this could easily, apart from the vocals, have been a new Savatage album. At times I actually get a certain ´Dead winter dead´feel when listening to it. Not a bad word to say about the singers appearing on this album though, they all does an excellent job and that espesially goes for the young Ms. Kayla Reeves whose performance is absolutely stunning. The song material is a fine mix of O'Neill/Oliva songs, instrumental parst and excerpts from classical masters such as Beethoven and Bach. The all over quality of the material is simply amazing and its all wrapped into an excellent production that allows all details to shine through this epic and atmospheric wall of sound. Enough said, this is THE album of the year, Period!

Discography:

'Letters from the labyrinth' 2015

'Night castle' 2009

'The lost christmas eve' 2004

'Beethovens last night' 2000

'The christmas attic' 1998

'Christmas eve and other stories' 1996