Uli Jon Roth, known to most of us from his stint with Scorpions and particularly in guitarist circles as one of the fathers of neoclassical metal, along with Ritchie Blackmore, released his latest work which is also his first official release from the cycle of symphonic legends, a cycle that began with the album “Prologue to the Symphonic Legends” in 1996.

On this album Roth combines rock, symphonic music and opera in order to create something that could be described as symphonic progressive rock. It utilises the talents of well known session vocalists such as Mark Boals (Yngwie Malmsteen, Royal Hunt) and Liz Vandall (Sahara) in order to dress his guitar’s flourishes with vocals. Those of you familiar with “Nostradamus” by Nicolo Kotzev (Brazen Abott) will know exactly what I mean.

Guitar-wise Uli Jon Roth hasn’t strayed from what we would expect from him since even though this isn’t an instrumental album it is his guitar that plays the main part. However he does give a lot of room to the vocalists in order to develop their art and in particular you could say that he handles then like one more instrument in his orchestra. Of course this also has an effect on the lyrics, with “The Magic Road” being a prime example, which despite its childish lyrics remains the most rock track on the album, with Mark Boals giving a performance that Ronnie James Dio would be proud and even jealous of.

The album also contains two epic tracks, “Land Of Dawn” and “Tanz In Die Dämmerung”. The first one begins in a way that will remind many of the good old days of Rainbow. We could even say that it is Uli Jon Roth’s own  “Gates Of Babylon”. The later, which runs at just under 19 minutes and is made up of 12 parts, skirts between Al Di Meola-like guitar passages right through to Wanger-escue operatic parts. It begins with an Arabian taste which afterwards transforms into something classical and then wraps up with one of Uli Jon Roth’s solos which you could say the whole album in one go.

Overall, this is an album which the fans of neoclassical metal will appreciate for the guitar parts, the progressive rock fans will like the compositions and the followers of Ronnie James Dio and Ritchie Blackmore will love for the vocal melodies. Perhaps the black-clad guitarist himself would have released something like this if he wasn’t away with the fairies. The big question however remains as to how Uli Jon Roth plans to present these songs live.