Band: Expedition Delta

CD Title: “Expedition Delta”

Band Website: www.expeditiondelta.com

Label: ProgRock Records

Label Website: www.progrockrecords.com

Release Date: 2008

You can call it Stadium Rock…Arena Rock…AOR…but whatever you want to call it…it’s not dead. Not in Serbia anyway.Serbia is the home of Srdjan Brankovic guitarist and founding member of the progmetal band Alogia. Here under the banner Expedition Delta, Srdjan has pulled together a host of homegrown players and teamed them up with others from the prog world to come up with a solo project that might have a little something for everyone. Among the more familiar guests he’s brought in include Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery), Erik Norlander (Rocket Scientists), Joost van den Broek (After Forever), Sabine Edelsbacher (Eden Bridge), but there are plenty of others. In fact a total of 21 performers have contributed to this project. One of the things I liked is that the solo artists for each song are identified in the liner notes.

The eleven compositions contained on the disc were all recorded during 2005 and 2006 but have only just now been released. Most of the material here is in the three to five minute range with two tracks in the seven minute range. Musically Expedition Delta’s musical style tends to fall more in the genres mentioned above rather than prog metal although there are segments that are certainly more aggressive. These are primarily songs built around powerful keyboards and guitar interplay with plenty of soloing on display. The sound is big, dramatic, even anthemic, and while there are subtle shifts in the compositions they tend to stick pretty close to verse and chorus structure. Not that this is entirely bad, but prog fans looking for long and involved soloing with dramatic shifts in time and tempo might want to look elsewhere. It’s perhaps not surprising that the two most complex songs, at least from the arrangement side, are the two 7-minute tracks. So if you are a fan of the musical style created by bands such as Rainbow, later day Deep Purple, Whitesnake and so forth, then this will certainly appeal to your tastes.

Overall I’d be hard-pressed to call the music created by Expedition Delta progressive rock. It’s a lot closer to straight forward melodic hard rock with some progressive rock or symphonic embellishments. But if you happen to be a fan of that general style or any of the bands mentioned I can imagine you’ll really enjoy the music created here.