Arena contagion free download

And I think that is the true problem of this release: all the tracks are ordinary. This is little more than a glorified pop rock album. True, every once in a while the band steps out and performs a little bit, but on twelve or thirteen of the tracks, we've got standard to weak music.

The vocalist doesn't seem to have much in the way of a unique voice, either. I must add that there a couple of good tunes, and one definitely good one. Without these, this album would probably getting only a single star. Painted Man and Skin Game are both interesting songs, with vocal melodies that actually stand apart from the things you'd expect.

The really good track is Cutting the Cards, which is the one streamable on this site. From this sample, I figured more of the album would feature that kind of energy and deeper songwriting. Well, it doesn't. Instead, the rest of the album ranges from worse to less interesting when compared to this track. Now, I do suppose that some serious neo-prog fans consider this music really fantastic, and I suppose they are allowed to. But coming from a fan of progressive music who only really asks for creative and original songwriting, Contagion leaves me pretty unimpressed and not very optimistic about the rest of the band's output.

If you love neo-prog or if you love Arena, I'd say go ahead. If you are unfamiliar with the genre or the band, the genre offers better music in IQ or Marillion, while I am unqualified to discuss the rest of the band's catalog at this moment.

I must admit, though, that the cover art is something really special on this album, and is the other highlight next to Cutting the Cards. This is the first Arena LP I have purchased, but it will certainly not be the last.

It is an fantastic album, neo-prog at its best, and I say that as a huge H era Marillion fan. The album has a great rock feel, but also includes the rich textures of sounds that prog fans long for in modern bands. It is entertaining, original, and does not fall in to the trap of trying to sound like a copy of classic prog bands. Highly recommended and thanks to ProgArchives for the previous reviews.

Contagion by Arena is the best release in the Neo-Prog top twenty with the only possible exception being the new release by Martigan and I only offer that exception because I don't have that one. Let me start with a brief story. As my prog resurgence grew over the last two years, I noticed that I leaned heavily towards Neo and Symphonic. I picked up a lot of CD's during this time, most of the time from deals that I was able to find on either Amazon or in used CD shops or downloads from iTunes or e-Music.

Not that it wasn't worth it, but when I could pick up two or three Marillion CD's for the same price, I had to go for the quantity. Finally, around Christmas time, I finally found a used copy of Contagion on Amazon, with a certain amount of excitement I ordered it along with a few others and eagerly awaited their arrival.

When Arena came, it was certainly used, a little on the beaten up side. The very next day, "A Street Between Sunrise and Sunset" by Satellite arrived in it's nice and shiny new package and I'll admit, I kind of forgot about Contagion for a month or two. I started listening to it in about March. Since then, it's been my most listened to album, easily. My point, this is a great CD.

On to the review proper: I have no complaints about this album; this is as close to a perfect album as we get in my mind. The production is wonderful; Clive Nolan is at his best here. His choice of keyboard patches is spot on and his solos, particularly on the showcase piece "Riding the Tide", are both beautiful and tasteful.

A magnificent solo is not based on how many notes you can play but when you choose to play them. Rob Sowden's powerful and soulful voice adds another layer of energy as he plays the part of patient zero of the plague that takes out humanity at least that's my interpretation. His mournful plea in "Mea Culpa" almost makes you cry while his gentle urging of "Oh my brother, kneel with me tonight" in "The City of Lanterns" gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. Rob sounds amazing on this album.

John's showcase piece, "This Way Madness Lies" shows his ability to solo tastefully while the last part of "On the Box" shows that he can shred when necessary. When he isn't luxuriating in the spotlight John Mitchell adds to the general ambience, blending with Clive seamlessly. Finally, the rhythm section of Mick Pointer and Ian Salmon is tight and solid the whole way through, providing the foundation that allows the other three to shine.

They really add to the "Cinema Show" feel of "Riding the Tide". There are no weak tracks on this CD. In addition, "Witch Hunt" starts the CD off with a driving bang, Mitchell's crashing guitar commands your attention from the first note until Sowden comes in with an angry growl a few seconds later. Spectre is pretty and a good set up to "Never Ending Night" which starts out beautiful and just plain ends up spine tinglingly evil. When Rob Sowden cries of the "quirk of fate, yielding to my DNA", the band follows with a hauntingly beautiful chord progression that, like many other points on this album, makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

In sum, I love this album and highly recommend it to any fans of Neo progressive music. This is as close as it gets to perfect for me. I still think The Visitor is their best ever. It is one-of-a-kind type of album, on which everything works.

But Contagious comes very close to that. For the first time the band has the same line up as their most recent work, Immortal? But Rob Sowden vocals are much more confident and personal here. Or was it meant to be like that?

Like a good mystery film director, Nolan does not give clear answers. Even the overall concept of the album is not explained, leaving the listener to find its own interpretation. There is little point trying to find a highlight here, since the whole album works as a big suite with many shifting moods and great musical passages that link one track to the other. Contagious is truly a work of art and a must have for any prog lover.

Highly recommended! Final rating: 4,5 stars P. If you don't mind a bit of cheese and, really, can any of us who really like neo prog say that we don't? Snowden does a very nice job, both in passionate and well-paced delivery i. Nolan lays it on nice and thick with the keys, and Mitchell brings it all over the top with some awesome guitar work.

Exhibit A: the Painted Man. A catchy, stately theme, and the instrumental break is a great example of Mitchell and Nolan supplementing each other as opposed to dueling, Petrucci and Rudess style. Mitchell's guitar has this enormous sound, and he just lets it rip--I just love this guy's feel. In addition--and perhaps more with this album than any of their others--you can actually hear the bass!

Not only that, but Salmon is doing some melodic stuff, as opposed to mechanically grinding it out in the low register as on Immortal, for example. Overall, probably the most consistent piece from a strikingly consistent band--consistently very good, to boot.

Perhaps it's the lack of a Visitor-style climactic ending, the slightly cheesy heaviness of some bits, or something I can't put a finger on, but I'm going to go against my id here and place this just out of masterpiece territory. Excellent album: A must for those of us who enjoy what Arena has to offer.

I'm going to keep hoping for them to crank out a true masterpiece of prog in the future--I know you guys have it in you! The centrepiece in a trilogy of releases including the Contagious and Contagium EPs. The Good: Whilst I am a fan of the genre, I find neo-prog in general to be a bit hit and miss.

To me it sometime sounds like prog with one hand tied behind its back, and can lack creativity. Thankfully Contagion is much stronger than Arena's previous releases and holds my attention throughout. The Bad: It all sounds exactly the same. The Verdict: An excellent addition to any neo-prog collection.

Please help me out here: What about this music, this album, is prog? Too bad, cuz I'm a big John Mitchell fan. Granted, there's places here and there where things get a bit samey or predictable, but on the whole it there aren't enough to completely derail the album, and the band pack in just enough surprises to make it worth picking up this one if you already have their earlier albums.

I particularly recommend the Contagion Max edition, which restores the missing songs which had been collected on various EPs to their proper part in the sequence. This is a step forward for Arena; they have raised the stakes and dare others within the prog field to follow. They have moved more into the prog metal area while at the same time staying far removed from bands such as Threshold.

This is an album that is keyboard-led, as would be expected from one of Clive's bands, but when the guitars are there they are crunching and when they are not there is the anticipation and edge that they will soon be back. It gives the album a sense of drama which is heightened by the way that the music swirls and moves through themes, returning to ideas and moving on in different ways.

It takes a strong vocalist to stand out against all that is going on and Rob Sowden knows when he has to take control with strong soaring vocals or when the time is right to be more emotional.

He is at home when singing with just a piano or when he is fronting an all out rock band. When Arena are in full flight they are a sight to be heard and the production by Clive Nolan and John Mitchell gives the sound the quality that it deserves.

There are times when this album is multi-tracked acoustic guitars and pure venom from John while at others this is a prog band that have let loose the hounds and are running at full pelt. With 'Contagion' Arena have thrown down the gauntlet and are daring others within this area to follow.

Intense, majestic, theatrical, powerful, full of visual imagery, I don't know how to convey the sheer wonder of this album. Visit www. I will be interviewing Clive in the next issue of Feedback for the first time for many years , but he has already told me that this album has had the highest pre-sales of any Arena album to date and has been in the national album charts in Germany as well as top 10 in the independent releases chart in Holland.

This really is a great album. At this point they sound less and less like 80s Marillion which was the sound of their early albums and more like their contemporaries IQ who also released a concept album at the same time.

This time around the band found a new lease on neo-prog by adding heavier and harder rock guitar and bass often verging into metal territory briefly with virtuosic guitar solos and heavy churning riffs and thundering bass but still manages to weave it around the intricately delicate melodies that have been carefully crafted into extremely strong and catchy tunes that build upon one another and seamlessly transition from track to track until an entire album unfolds around you.

There are also many space rock references to Pink Floyd with dreamy echoey guitars, sensual solos and Salmon's strong Rickenbacker bass lines. Despite having the qualities of AOR, something about ARENA's attention to details make the music quite sophisticated with variations in the subtleties such as keyboard runs, echoey guitar backings or different types of drum fills.

The melody is the main driver of the tracks with Sowden's vocal emphasis on the lyrics being mostly in the spotlight except when the band delivers excellent musical prowess such as on the instrumental beasts "This Way Madness Lies," "On The Box" and "Riding The Tide.

While there are clearly stronger tracks than others, the beauty of the album is that is places all of the elements in key places. It opens with several strong tracks and then has some quieter less powerful tracks that skillfully link the various parts together. CONTAGION was originally intended to be released as a double album but Clive Nolan got cold feet on releasing such a sprawling 90 minute plus behemoth of a double album and nixed seven tracks and would release them simultaneously on two separate EPs titled "Contagious" and "Contagium.

CONTAGION will surely go down as their magnum opus as it is one of those album's that only gets better the more you listen to it, at least that's the way it worked for me. Arena is a band which doesn't need to be introduced. Almost everybody or at least people that are interested on progressive rock has listened to some of their albums, surely. For me, the band has been used for many people as a useful connector and not as a big band full of great skill and virtuoso movements.

However, I have to say that they have worked out a nice musical space and deserving to be one of the most important bands of the modern prog rock scene. It's their first studio album to feature the same line up of their previous studio album 'Immortal? Like their follow up third studio album 'The Visitor', which was released in , 'Contagion' is also a conceptual album made of interwoven tracks and recurring themes.

So, as usual on the most of the cases of the conceptual pieces, the music and the lyrics flow throughout the album, for the most part of it, as if they were only a single theme. Thus, and as usual, I'm just going to review the album globally, not track by track, and make some general considerations. So, one of the leaders of the contemporary neo-prog rock scene Arena was back with another very powerful new studio album of melodic rock with some very catchy anthems, great symphonic keyboards and a fantastic guitar performance.

In reality, it's a real follow up to their highly regarded previous studio album 'Immortal? It fully confirms that the group has gone the musical direction to a path of a much heavier sound. Thus, despite 'Contagion' follows the same path of 'Immortal? If we make a brief reflection about all their five first studio albums we may say the following. Their two first studio albums 'Songs From The Lion's Cage' and 'Pride' are very similar and follow the same formula of the traditional sound of the progressive sound of the 70's.

It's also very close to the music of the traditional neo-prog bands like Marillion, IQ, Pendragon and Pallas. With their third studio album 'The Visitor' we can clearly see a change on their sound and, in my humble opinion, with this album the band found their own proper sound and space into the neo-prog style and definitively established itself as one of the major living forces into that progressive sub-genre. Their next forth studio album 'The Immortal?

With this new album 'Contagion', I sincerely think that it follows the same path and formula of 'The Visitor' and 'Immortal? About the tracks, the opening cut 'Witch Hunt' grabs you right away, with the chunky guitars of John Mitchell and the powerful, husky vocals of Rob Sowden leading the charge. This is Sowden's second recording with the band, and the singer is brimming with confidence throughout the album.

On the emotional 'Painted Man', the vocalist pulls a great performance, as his powerful and pained performance is matched only by the fluid, David Gilmour influenced fret work from Mitchell.

The guitarist and keyboard wiz Clive Nolan lay down some complex, sonic blasts on the melodic instrumentals 'This Way Madness Lies' and 'On The Box', two tracks that are excellent but really serve as seques to the vocal pieces. The band even approaches prog metal bliss on songs like 'Skin Game', 'Salamander', and 'Tsunami'. Clive Nolan is fairly restrained as far as solos go on this album, and goes for a more varied and textural sound.

But on the tune 'Riding The Tide' he lets loose with a vengeance, blasting out wild synth solos with a true reckless abandon. Conclusion: 'Contagion' is an excellent album and one of Arena's best albums and undoubtedly it represents, for me, the second masterpiece of the group. Relatively to their previous studio album 'Immortal? In relation to their first two studio albums 'Songs From The Lion's Cage' and 'Pride', it's definitely better because it's much balanced and more cohesive that those albums are, despite they're also two great albums.

However, when we compare it with 'The Visitor' I sincerely don't have the same opinion. In my humble opinion, and despite all I wrote before, 'The Visitor' remains, for me, as their greatest and finest masterpiece until now. Concluding, 'The Visitor' and 'Contagion' are among one of the best neo-prog albums ever made and with them, Arena ascend to the rare status of being one of the most important and immortal bands of the neo-prog scene with bands like Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Pallas and Galahad.

Prog is my Ferrari. Loosely or certainly, depending on who you ask a concept album that is seemingly telling the story of a man's otherworldly journey through the darkest places of the mind, touching upon the topics of trust, love, fear, and angst - the recurring themes of this album; it is really challenging to precisely dissect the story and make up something that sounds convincing, mainly because the story is pretty fractured!

It seems like the order of the songs that would make the concept of 'Contagion' more straightforward and perceivable is shuffled. Not only this, but as most progressive rock fans know, this album is actually lacking seven tracks that supposedly animate the story Fortunately, the full version exists as 'Contagion Max' and unfortunately, a select few have heard it. However, the real protagonist of the whole frenzy is the 'blue flame' that is mentioned on several occasions throughout the album, hypothetically the true sources of the contagion around which the concept revolves.

But what makes this record so compelling? It could hardly be the confusing conceptual side, too blurry and mysterious to be grasped? Vocalist Rob Snowden's performance is also stellar, so is the one of bass player Ian Salmon.

The successful amalgamation of different moods, tones, and tempos make this album a unique and blissful listening experience, that has pretty much everything one would want from a top-tier progressive rock album. This mode is inspired by traditional MOBA games where you and your team rush toward the enemy base and bring down their nexus tower. NFTs Item. Earn your NFTs item by playing the game and sell it on the marketplace to make money. What's Thetan Coin? Thetan Coin is our main ingame currency which can be achieved by playing game modes and participating in many other activities.

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