The cd opens with Innocent Victim, a track written by Gijs Koopman. Though several sources of influence can be detected (Vander Graaf Generator, King Crimson), the music is original enough to be judged on its own merites. The complex rhythm patterns and alterations cast a shadow ahead of things to come. Thirteen minutes is the time that this song lasts, and these contain some great musical moments. The vocals get lost sometimes in the mix, which is always a risk when using mellotron-sounds.

The second piece is Sewers, a seven minutes instrumental in two parts, the first written by Koopman, the second by Heijboer. The piece shows the way the band has been growing musically and technically. Each member is in firm control of his instrument.

The third piece, The Artist, is completely written by Huigen. There is a remarkable contrast between the full orchestral ending section of this song and the tiresome difficult beginning. The song deals with the death of a father and the questions that arise in such circumstances. It is here that the lyrical weakness of the band appears. The lyrics are seldom poetic, rhyme is forced on many occasions. Huigen should understand that it is far better to escape rhyme and search for fitting words than to take another word only for reasons of rhyming. The meaning of the lyrics get distorted by far-fetched rhyming words. Listen to Hammill and this becomes obvious.

The fourth piece is Ragnarök, grown since the cassette with two minutes. Musically speaking, this is a great piece. The guitar-mellotron theme in the beginning section is powerful and evocative, the development is refreshing and surprising sometimes. One expects Wagnerian major keys and finds that sometimes minor keys work too. There is a problem however in the lack of melody in the vocal parts. Huigen is not a great singer and this obviously restrains the writer. Koopman has shown himself as an inventive composer of complex music and it must be a challenge for him to adapt his music better to the vocal capacities of the singer. It is not a question of reach but a problem of evocation. Huigen yells too much when he tries to evoke emotion and thus shows the weakness of his voice. An example of a way to avoid this problem has already been given in Colossus on their previous cd. A second grave problem of Ragnarök is the lyrical content and it is not the only piece on this cd to which this problem applies. The story of Innocent Victim, about someone who climbs a mountain, slips and discovers a new world, has been heard before in Genesis's One for the Vine. In Ragnarök it gets worse. This time Huigen has missed the point completely. Of course it is not easy to rework an important and far-stretching part of Nordic mythology, but a capable writer can do better without any doubt. Maybe this failure is due to the rhyming, I don't know. The sad thing of messing with such great stuff as the Edda is, is that if you blow it, you can never return to the material again. Next time, stick to more down to earth material, guys.

The cd is completed with a four minute piece called Moon. Heijboer makes his keyboards sound like an orchestra, performing a classical symphony (Beethoven came to my mind). The cd ends with a small joke (though not original, Eroc has done this before on his second album). After some eight minutes of silence, someone is awakened by a cuckoo clock and a wild jam follows. The opening theme of Ragnarök can be recognised.

Generally speaking about this cd, one can say that the band has grown to maturity in techical musical skills. There are virtuose parts on the cd that convince me of this beyond any doubt. The composing skills have grown too. Still there are some sloppy parts, but one gets the idea that the composers finally achieve in music what they had in mind originally.

Partly as a result of these developments, the weakness in Huigen's voice and the restrictions on his lyrical capacities become more obvious. Maybe they should look for a better singer, but that may also destroy a part of Cliffhanger's sound. Maybe the voice is to many other's taste and am I speaking as a minority. The lyrical weakness can be solved by sticking to smaller themes and evading rhyming by force. Their success in achieving this can only be judged after the release of their third cd. Expectations remain high.

November 4th, 1996,
Peter J.R. Vermaat