Marcel Coenen - Colour Journey

*=Staff's pick	Waiting* Abstract Impact Patron Saint* La Bella Mira Traumatized To The Bone Skill Factor That Moment The Shrink V(erbal) D(efense) M(echanism) New Race* Still Bleeding

Genre	Progressive Metal/Instr.	Various	Vocals
Tracks	11	Marcel Coenen	Guitar
Runningtime	57 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Lion Music	Various	Bass
Release	20 Jan. 2006	Various	Drums
Country	Holland	Various	Keyboards
Similar artists	Dream Theater, Sun Caged, Joe Satriani

Does the name Marcel Coenen say anything to you? If not I will try to fill in the blanks. Marcel is an extremely gifted guitarist from The Netherlands and at the moment he is paying his duties in the progressive metal band Sun Caged. This however is his second solo effort and the first one to include vocals. According to himself it's an attempt to show his song writing skills more than his guitar skills. He is not lying about that but we are definitely also served some guitar virtuosity here and there.

The guest list on Colour Journey is very long and the musicians that participate differ from song to song. It's an impossible task to describe this record in an easy way because it's so diverse. I've therefore decided to make a song-by-song commentary instead.

- Waiting: Power/progressive metal that somewhat is quite similar to Marcel's main band.
- Abstract Impact: The first instrumental track with a constant heavy groove.
- Patron Saint: We enter the land of Dream Theater with this piece of technical prog metal.
- La Bella Mira: Instrumental track that's quite atmospheric with tasteful guitar leads.
- Traumatized To The Bone: Technical death/prog metal with a lot of different vocals, extremely diverse.
- Skill Factor: Yet another instrumental track and this time we travel in the landscapes of fusion rock and jazz rock.
- That Moment: This one is close to be categorised as a pop ballad.
- The Shrink: Once again it's an instrumental song and this one's very technical with a lot of shredding.
- V(erbal) D(efense) M(echanism): Marcel goes grunge! Alice In Chains comes instantly to my mind.
- New Race: This track has a nice driving rhythm with a lot of pounding double bass. I must mention the great melodic solo.
- Still Bleeding: A ballad with female vocals that makes me think of Evanescence.

As you already might have understood this album has a lot of different faces and that makes the overall feeling far from solid. I understand that Marcel wants to explore new ground but in the end it gets far too diverse to make this album enjoyable. At its best I would like to call Colour Journey interesting, at its worst boring. But in the end, this album wasn't made for the masses and he has indeed proven that he with ease can deal with a lot of different genres. I will forget this album in a short while but the name Marcel Coenen won't be forgotten and I will follow the future of Sun Caged with great interest.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	6	5

Summary
5 chalices of 10 - Hawk