Hubi Meisel - Kailash

*=Staff's pick	Potala Place* Red Oracle Snow Lion Himalayan Sunset Shiva's Dance Kailash - Jewel Of Ice Wheel Of Life Milarepa's Cave Of Miracles Merdeka The Great Prayer (Monlam Chenmo) The Gentleman Of Great Magic Tigers Of Everst

Genre	Progressive Rock/Metal	Hubi Meisel	Vocals
Tracks	12	Marcel Coenen	Guitar
Runningtime	63 Min.	Jorge Salán	Guitar
Label	Lion Music	Johan Niemann	Bass
Release	27 Feb. 2006	Daniel Flores	Drums
Country	Germany	Vivien Lalu	Keyboards
Similar artists	Lalu

The German singer Hubi Meisel known from bands like Triple X and Dreamscape among others is about to release his second solo album (or third if you count the his cover album from 2002). Kailash is an ambitious project with a production time of more than two years. The lyrical idea is a concept story about Himalayas, Tibet and ancient Buddhist/Hindu mythology. To help him out musically he has gathered a bunch of well-known musicians such as Marcel Coenen (Sun Caged), Daniel Flores (Mind's Eye) and Johan Niemann (Mind's Eye/Therion) to name a few.

The music we find on Kailash is quite varied progressive rock/metal with symphonic elements. This kind of music normally needs a couple of extra spins to really grow and believe me, I've tried. The album opens quite nice with Potala Place that inhabits tasteful melodies and great arrangements, nothing spectacular but slightly above average anyway. This is however the only track that in some way has caught my attention. The rest of the album is just music flowing by without memorable hooks or melody lines. I have found some nice passages here and there but nothing that sticks in your mind after you have finished listening. I am not that fond of Hubi Meisels vocal style either. His laid-back and soft vocals should be more appropriate in the pop genre I believe.

Music is all about emotions but this doesn't move me at all. It is very strange that this anonymous album took over two years to complete but maybe the main effort was put into the lyrical work. You can't argue about the musician-ship but that means nothing when you don't have the melodies to work with. I haven't heard his previous solo album but I won't check it up either since Kailash after several spins still is like a blank sheet for me.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
6	3	4

Summary
4 chalices of 10 - Hawk