Phreeworld are a promising band from USA, who are playing a mixture of early Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis and The Beatles with a little doze of Jazz, Magma and King Crimson. The guitarist sometimes reminds of Steve Hackett and the singer of Jon Anderson. They have put a lot of work behind the vocals and the song harmonies. Everybody in the band is singing and they are excellent musicians. Partially the music is very complicated with many tempo changes.

The CD contains 9 tracks with various lengths between 3 to 8 minutes, but the most tracks is between 3 to 5 minutes. The sound quality isn't that good and the mixing is rather blurred. This fact makes the more complex parts of the songs quiet hard to hear which is negative for the whole record. The CD booklet though is very beautiful and that is positive.

The most memorably songs are "The Hermit", "Gates Walk", "The Empress", "Wardrums" and "The Chariot", but all tracks are good.

Recommended! This is progressive rock at it's best! This is one of the better albums from 1998. Hopefully we will hear more from Phreeworld in the future. They deserve to break through.

When I hear them playing their music I immediately feel a great softness (?), and what I mean by that is the music including the vocals are very soft, of course. The whole band must have listened quite a lot to YES, and especially all vocals which reminds me of Jon Anderson, they are for sure in the same direction. His voice is not as high pitching as Jon's though. I think the Phreeworld music would have been a bit better with some higher tempo in a few songs, but it's OK to do what they do. The album in general is a positive experience, since it has that calming effect. There are a lot of acoustic parts too which I think is a very good thing.

The introducing song is really good. The vocals in this one reminds me a lot of someone else, but I can't put my finger on who. Nine tracks from Phreeworld, which should be tried out by everyone. It might fit your taste perfectly.