Eggroll - prog, Israel

When I added EGROLL to Prog Archives I did with great expectation, not only because the DVD they released (Which contained three cover tracks of Genesis, King Crimson and Jethro Tull plus two outstanding original songs) but mostly because the unreleased material which showed a great desire to create good Progressive Rock and the skills to do it, but their second release "Fairytales" was a real disappointment, the unique sound went God knows where.
Don't misunderstand me, the album is not bad, has some excellent moments but they seem to have lost the original and strong Symphonic sound they had on the two tracks of "Eggroll Live Progressive Act" and the unreleased material that I got by courtesy of the band and Raya Kosovsky who promoted many groups from Israel in her site.
The first problem I find is that the fabulous flute player Naama Shalev apparently left the band, but the rest of the members haven't changed. Lior Seker's voice remains as strong as ever but this time the role of the talented Lior Talmor in the keyboards seems left in a second plane, a great loss in both cases.
The material is oriented towards some form of light Prog mixed with an obvious Beatles influence, a touch of Radiohead and some Hard Rock but clearly they have chosen to keep closer to the safety of mainstream rather than in the risky but imaginative and original Prog, despite this facts, the quality is still there and I really hope this was only an accident or a step in their career.
I don't want to review every song as I usually do because I don't want to be hard with a band from who I still expect a lot, so I will talk about the tracks that impressed me more.
"Source of Light" starts as a soft ballad influenced by The Beatles, the piano and vocals are really good as usual, as they did in the opening of their DVD (Theme Song/Out in the Dark) turns into some sort of power ballad even when with less strength than in the previous release, good melody and still some echoes of the original style.
"Save my World" starts as an acoustic guitar ballad and when the rest of the band joins the sound is really good, melodic but strong, probably the closer they get to Prog. What I want to emphasize is the dramatic mood that reminds me a bit of Camel but darker, very strong track and impeccable vocal work.
Even when different "Must be Something" is a powerful song, Lior Seker does a very good work with Hard Rock oriented tracks and again Talmor does an outstanding job with piano and organ, but the power of the track lies in the strong guitar work and Gil Idan drums, songs as this one makes me still believe in them.
Now is the turn to comment the title song, "Fairytale" which starts with a beautiful acoustic guitar and a soft violin (Don't know if it's synthesized, but who cares, it's excellent), a folksy tune that really relaxes and shows the musicianship of the band, nice track.
"Dead End" is another dramatic song (They do better with his kind of stuff) good vocal work and bass, reminds me a bit of "Red" era King Crimson with a Symphonic atmosphere, again they hit the nail right in the head, somebody tell this guys that light stuff is not for them, they should keep this mood.
"Highlands" is a good atmospheric instrumental, again darker and dramatic, the only problem is that the two minutes leaves the listener with the honey in the lips.
"Find a Way Back Home" is a very decent track but IMHO bad choice for a closer, melodic soft and well written, maybe too strong Beatles influence and too close to mainstream, still there's something that attracts me to this song like a guilty pleasure.
The other five tracks are not bad even when very uneven, some good moments but in general terms too bland for my taste.well seven out of twelve tracks is not bad at all if you are not familiar with the potential of this band.
I don't want to end this review without asking why did they changed the name of the band to "EGGROLL AND THE SHAKES"?. Sadly most of the information about the band is in Hebrew so my curiosity will remain unanswered.
Rating the album is not hard, it's clearly over the average but I expected much more, so will go with three stars but honestly hope they return to the sound of the early years.
If you are a fan of light Prog, this is your album, relaxing, calmed, good sound and musicianship, but something is missing, still I don't regret buying the album there's always a place for it in my CD player when in the mood of softer stuff.

[pre]REM GENRE "Progressive Rock"
REM DATE 2006
REM DISCID 9D0AFC0C
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb4"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
TITLE "Fairytale"
FILE "01 - Sing the Blues.wav" WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "Sing the Blues"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "Source of Light"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 00 03:32:74
FILE "02 - Source of Light.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "03 - Save My World.wav" WAVE
TRACK 03 AUDIO
TITLE "Save My World"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 04 AUDIO
TITLE "Must Be Something"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 00 04:30:66
FILE "04 - Must Be Something.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 05 AUDIO
TITLE "Not Far"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 00 04:16:36
FILE "05 - Not Far.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 06 AUDIO
TITLE "Darkness Holds"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 00 04:10:15
FILE "06 - Darkness Holds.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 07 AUDIO
TITLE "Fairytale"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 00 03:01:18
FILE "07 - Fairytale.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "08 - She's on the Phone.wav" WAVE
TRACK 08 AUDIO
TITLE "She's on the Phone"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 09 AUDIO
TITLE "Take Your Time"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 00 04:34:73
FILE "09 - Take Your Time.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 10 AUDIO
TITLE "Dead End"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 00 04:43:34
FILE "10 - Dead End.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 11 AUDIO
TITLE "Highlands"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 00 03:25:58
FILE "11 - Highlands.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "12 - Find a Way Back Home.wav" WAVE
TRACK 12 AUDIO
TITLE "Find a Way Back Home"
PERFORMER "Eggroll & The Shakes"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
[/pre]

[pre]Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008

EAC extraction logfile from 17. November 2010, 17:25

Eggroll & The Shakes / Fairytale

Used drive : HL-DT-STDVD-RAM GH22NP20 Adapter: 0 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 102
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 320 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.00 | 3:33.03 | 0 | 15977
2 | 3:33.03 | 4:12.06 | 15978 | 34883
3 | 7:45.09 | 4:32.27 | 34884 | 55310
4 | 12:17.36 | 4:17.08 | 55311 | 74593
5 | 16:34.44 | 4:11.40 | 74594 | 93458
6 | 20:46.09 | 3:03.25 | 93459 | 107208
7 | 23:49.34 | 3:12.63 | 107209 | 121671
8 | 27:02.22 | 4:36.19 | 121672 | 142390
9 | 31:38.41 | 4:44.05 | 142391 | 163695
10 | 36:22.46 | 3:28.28 | 163696 | 179323
11 | 39:50.74 | 1:58.12 | 179324 | 188185
12 | 41:49.11 | 5:03.33 | 188186 | 210943

Track 1

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\01 - Sing the Blues.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC E4DFCD15
Copy CRC E4DFCD15
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 2

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\02 - Source of Light.wav

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Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC ADE1B6A3
Copy CRC ADE1B6A3
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 3

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\03 - Save My World.wav

Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 158C4044
Copy CRC 158C4044
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 4

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\04 - Must Be Something.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:01.48

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 3905C460
Copy CRC 3905C460
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 5

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\05 - Not Far.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:00.62

Peak level 100.0 %
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Test CRC 356360AD
Copy CRC 356360AD
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 6

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\06 - Darkness Holds.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:01.33

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC EF0E6D43
Copy CRC EF0E6D43
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 7

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\07 - Fairytale.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.09

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 940BC583
Copy CRC 940BC583
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 8

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\08 - She's on the Phone.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 50F56743
Copy CRC 50F56743
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 9

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\09 - Take Your Time.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:01.28

Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 0180139C
Copy CRC 0180139C
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 10

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\10 - Dead End.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:00.61

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC C38A2231
Copy CRC C38A2231
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 11

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\11 - Highlands.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.60

Peak level 86.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC C5DE6F93
Copy CRC C5DE6F93
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 12

Filename D:\music\Musicgate's rips\Eggroll & The Shakes - Fairytale (2006, BarB)\12 - Find a Way Back Home.wav

Peak level 99.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 0EE02226
Copy CRC 0EE02226
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

No errors occurred

End of status report
[/pre]

Аудио кодек: FLAC (*.flac)
Тип рипа: (tracks + .cue)
Корректность рипа: EAC ripped, correct read offset, test and copy, accuratelly ripped
Битрейт аудио: lossless
Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: full scans, png, 300 dpi
Продолжительность: 46:52