This is one of the best debut albums ever made by a progressive rock group. Spock's Beard from California, USA, is already with their first release a full-grown and matured band, and "The Light" don't have any weak moments at all. Three of the four tracks are passing 12 minutes. I really love long tracks when they aren't suffering in quality because of their length. Another great thing is that they use the great Mellotron and Hammond organ. A great combination indeed!

The most obvious band influence is Gentle Giant without being a clone. There's also traces of Beatles, Genesis, Yes, Kansas and Pink Floyd. They are skilled musicians with Neal Morse being a great singer too. The music that is progressive symphonic rock, are very complex and intrigued, but it has got a lot of strong melodies and rich vocal harmonies too. It can be rather tiring when musicians obviously are trying to show of their technically musical skills, and just forget about the melody and to make an all in all good song. Spock's Beard has got the technically brilliance but also the capability to write memorably melodies. That's good!

This is challenging and dramatic progressive music that will grow on you with its many emotion, mood and atmosphere changes. I recommend it to all lovers of complex symphonic prog. This is a good investment to your CD collection.