Michelle Young Marked For Madness 2001 320k(Ex Glasshammer All star cast here)

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Michelle Young - Marked For Madness
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Artist...............: Michelle Young
Album................: Marked For Madness
Genre................: Progressive Rock
Source...............: CD
Year.................: 2001
Ripper...............: EAC (Secure mode)
Codec................: LAME 3.97
Version..............: MPEG 1 Layer III
Quality..............: Insane, (avg. bitrate: 320kbps)
Channels.............: Joint Stereo / 44100 hz
Tags.................: ID3 v1.1, ID3 v2.3
Information..........: My Rip
Tracker..............: RocKOut Boogie
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Tracklisting
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1. (00:06:30) Michelle Young - Marked For Madness
2. (00:03:27) Michelle Young - A Lively Toast
3. (00:06:46) Michelle Young - Spider's Thread
4. (00:03:36) Michelle Young - Hope: Realization
5. (00:01:04) Michelle Young - First Light
6. (00:06:30) Michelle Young - Dancing On The Head Of A Pin
7. (00:04:42) Michelle Young - Demons
8. (00:02:21) Michelle Young - Hope: The Darkest Hour
9. (00:05:15) Michelle Young - Melissa's Demise
10. (00:02:24) Michelle Young - The Right Of Passage
11. (00:02:59) Michelle Young - Hope: Encouragement
12. (00:04:15) Michelle Young - Mystery Man Summoned
13. (00:01:55) Michelle Young - Pull The Wool
14. (00:08:07) Michelle Young - Walk In The Light
15. (00:01:32) Michelle Young - Toujours Ensemble
Playing Time.........: 01:01:23
Total Size...........: 140.63 MB
NFO generated on.....: 12/11/2008 17:40:16
Michelle Young's qualities may be unknown to many of you, although she already presented herself with Glasshammer, the Leonardo-project (in duet with Steve Walsh) and her first album Song of the Siren (1996). Michelle also contributed to DPRP's The Vision Pit.
With Marked for Madness, however, she presents herself very clearly to the prog-scene. This album is the result of the collaboration with Clive Nolan, who was responsible for keyboards, arrangements and production, with Karl Groom engineering.

Hence, it's not strange that the piano/vocal-combination in the title track echoes a distant Strangers on a Train-feeling. This track is one of the more progressive compositions on the album with spooky effects, and a great guitar-solo towards the end.
A Lively Toast is a great, upbeat track with an addictive, repetitive piano-line. Michelle's voice resembles Kate Bush's in some tracks, and this is one of them. This track is a great, funny pop track. Simple but effective and by that, one of my favourites on the album.

Spider's Thread starts with a keyboard flute (real would have been nicer) introduction, followed by a nice string-arrangement which is the main basis of this track. Knowing that Nolan is a great Kate Bush-fan, I can hear some influences here. The song takes you along several atmospheres, from romantic to more threatening.
Orchestral arrangements of an almost "cinematic" nature are featured in the instrumental Hope:Realization. This wouldn't be out of place in a movie or musical. In a way it reminds me of Nolan's arrangements for Jabberwocky.
The shortest track of the album, First Light, features the great voice of Bobby Kimball (Toto). Too bad he's only present for two lines. It would be great to hear more of this great singer together with Michelle's great vocals.

Dancing On The Head Of A Pin takes a three minute introduction, with a duet of thunder and vocals, only to burst out into a great track with powerful drums, a lovely melody and eclectic vocals on top of it. A real highlight!
The album slows down again with Demons, which is, again, an atmospheric song with orchestral arrangements in Jabberwocky-style. This time there's a nice multi-vocal arrangement. Besides the orchestral keyboards Nolan presents himself towards the end of the song with a nice 'widdly' solo. The following Hope: The Darkest Hour is mainly a collection of dark and threatening sounds, but the meaning of this remains unclear to me.
It leads into Melissa's Demise, a pop/rock-song in almost Tori Amos-style about a girl 'nobody liked' who committed suicide. Gone are the 'Kate Bush-isms'. Welcome the guitar! A great riff and ditto solo give this album the necessary edge. Michelle Young appears to have a great 'low-end' of her voice as well, which is used here with aggression.

The Right of Passage is another orchestral song, this time in classical dance style from Vienna, with a violin-solo at the end. Personally, I like the solo-sound a lot better than the sounds used for the orchestra. That's the only problem I have with this kind of arrangements: they never can replace 'the real thing'.
Hope: Encouragement combines the orchestral arrangements with bass (by Peter Gee) and guitars (by Karl Groom) and the track benefits from the fuller sound which is the result. Nolan is present on backing vocals.
One of the most captivating vocal performances is present on Mystery Man Summoned. It is followed by the short Pull The Wool which is mainly a collection of voices.

The longest track on the album is Walk in the Light. The slow introduction leads to a very powerful part of the track, which breaks down to a beautiful piano-part, soon to be interrupted by heavy drums and guitar. The 'walk in the light'-line from First Light is repeated here, this time by Michelle Young herself. With all it's changes in mood, speed and sounds, this probably is the most 'progressive' track of all.
The short acoustic Toujours Ensemble finishes it all, not unlike Made Again (Marillion) or Friday's Dream (Arena). A beautiful, positive resting point at the end.
...

Frigging awesome talent ;D ;D