When I saw the words “Concept Album” attached to the publicity material that came with this CD, I thought this is going to be a tough one to review and so it proved. Throwing out a few pertinent numbers associated with this CD is somewhat mind boggling for a start. Not many single CD’s cram 79 minutes of music and 19 tracks on to them, created by an equally mind boggling number of musicians, 29 in total, not including The Rome Philharmonic Orchestra which must add at least another 60 or so to that total. 

“Discovery” is Chris Catena’s follow up to his 2004 debut album “Freak Out” and whilst it demonstrates a high degree of technical ability both from Catena, who proves to be a pretty versatile vocalist, and the impressive band of musicians in tow, it suffers from being way too long and drawn out. There also seems to be a few places where the production suffers a little, probably from the fact that tracks were laid down in many different places around the world to accommodate everyone involved. 

Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely some merit to the material on this CD, songs such as “Freedom Bound” and “The Chosen One” are perfectly good rockers with a strong guitar based sound and get things off to a good start but there is simply too many songs where it would have been better to stick to that simpler sound, rather than trying to introduce a more progressive feel. That changeable sound certainly makes this album difficult to classify but overall the feel is more 1970’s than any other era, with perhaps a few touches of 1980’s Whitesnake where the songs are harder edged. 

The mid part of the album ebbs and flows somewhat but I would pick out “Hot Damn Mercy Man” and the mid-tempo “Forgive Me” as tracks particularly worth listening through.  Unfortunately, the latter part of the album starts to meander even more with a definite move away from the guitar driven sound and as the orchestra kicks in on “Landing (All Of My Dreams Come True)”, there’s something of an ELO feel to it all. In fact the latter part of the album was really only memorable for the guitar riff in “Comin’ Home” which is the final track. 

Maybe I just failed to get the overall concept (or at least lost sight of it by the time I got to the end of the CD) but for me, cutting this down to nine or ten tracks would have produced a far stronger CD.

Let us know your views on Discovery

Track Listing

Theme 1 – Theme From Discovery
Freedom Bound
The Chosen One
New Dimension
Theme 2 - The Flight
The Spacefreak King
The Last Goodbye
The Flight (Reprise)
Hot Damn Mercy Man
Resurrection
Cosmic Girl
Forgive Me
Open Letter
Memories
The Space
Theme 3 - To Mother Earth (The Return)
Landing (All of My Dreams Have Come True)
Theme 4 - Back to Life Again
Comin' Home