Cast
Third Call

Third CD in a year (a record!) for the Mexicans Cast. Once again, we are faced with a mix of older and more recent tracks (dating back to 1989 and 1984). Listening to the first track, something seems to have slightly changed. Not the style, always typically Anglo-Saxon symphonic prog (just a bit more inclined towards New Prog), not the recording quality, always medium-low, not the performances, always quite good and perhaps the most positive aspect of the previous two CDs. Maybe it's just the piece that presents a greater degree of incisiveness, of personality. To be honest, this feeling already fades with the second track, and I quickly think that this review will be a photocopy of the first two. Then the third track kicks in with a quite decent keyboard intro and a subsequent dramatic singing that fortunately brings me back to the initial sensations. It is a piece of excellent new prog and fortunately, the album continues along the same lines, even managing not to bore me (something that didn't happen with the previous two CDs).

With this "Third Call," therefore, Cast begins to stir the waters in the progressive field by producing a work that certainly won't be a masterpiece but starts to put them on the same level with several English bands that at the same time were achieving more success (see the likes of Big Big Train or Grey Lady Down, just to name a couple...). Years of dedication to the genre may finally be bearing the hoped-for fruits, and there is hope that future releases will mark a further improvement for this band.