Benoit David – Vocals; Michel St.-Père – Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Keyboards; Steve Gagné – Drums
Guest Musicians:
Antoine Fafard – Bass; Benoit Dupuis – Keyboards; Claire Vezina – Backing Vocals; Daryl Stuermer – Guitar; Dean Baldwin – Guitar; Francois Fournier – Bass, Taurus Pedals; John Jowitt – Bass; Oliver Wakeman – Moog; Richard Lanthier – Bass; Damelia and Dahlie-Yann St.-Père – Children Laughter
“Among the Living” is a short intro which turns into “Wolf”, the first real track of the album. You are immediately confronted with the atmosphere of the album. Symphonic Rock with lots of melody, tempo changes and beautiful synth runs. And of course there is that fantastic singer that we already know from their previous album “Beneath the Veil of Winter’s Face”. A good opener for this beautiful album.
The next track is called “Between Love and Hate” and has a quite opening with nice melodic vocal lines. It has some AOR influences through the melodic choruses. More exciting is the track “Until the Truth Comes Out” which has wonderful vocal melodies and guitar lines in the first slow part. Slowly the tension of the music is building up and the solo’s gets spicier. But in the whole track the music stays very melodic. “Kameleon Man” has more rhythm and is more a rock song and has some aggressive guitar licks and a delicious synth solo.
“Through Different Eyes” is the long (22:35) epic of this album. This is of course the highlight of the album. Nice quiet vocals in the beginning, beautiful keyboard orchestrations, lots of tempo changes, delicate acoustic guitars and much diversity can be heard in this beautiful song. Towards the end the tension of the music slowly builds up to a beautiful climax. The strong points of the music are always the beautiful melody lines. Of course the soaring guitar solo in the end is not lacking.
Now it is time for the title track “One Among the Living”. For me one of the highlights of the album. Aggressive and melodic guitar parts, passionate sung vocals and beautiful keyboard orchestrations.
“The Falling Man” is a song with a darker atmosphere. There are many repetitions, especially in the vocal parts. To be honest I don’t like the way Benoit David is singing in this song. I lose my concentration a bit by the repeating choruses. In a way this song is breaking the balance of the album.
The album ends with the track called “Sailing On A Wing”. In this song the beautiful melodic vocal refrains are back again and there is a nice guitar solo. A dignified end to this beautiful album.