MARCEL COENEN – Colour Journey

Although Marcel Coenen is known for his current band, Sun Caged, his solo work existed long before the band was formed. His debut solo album, Guitartalk, put his name onto the map for Progressive Instrumental Metal.

Parting ways with the Guitartalk format, Marcel has released a new solo album, Colour Journey. Featuring a range of vocalists, from female Goth-ish vocals to aggressive Death Metal and Melodic Progressive singing, the album soundscape is as diverse as the range of guests.

Progressive and Heavy are the main attributes of most of the tracks in Colour Journey, but the eclecticism ever-present within this Instrumental album makes a statement about Marcel’s musical versatility.

In the dark and heavy side of the record, the arrangements follow Progressive influences such as Dream Theater and Symphony X, with drum-oriented guitar rhythms and melodic choruses, such as in “Waiting.” For fans of Extreme music, Marcel gave a shot at that in “Traumatized to the Bone.” With vocals ranging from guttural grunts to female melodic singing, the song is definitely one of the most eclectic tracks on Colour Journey.

Contrasting to the aggressive side of Marcel’s writing, the beautiful “La Bella Mira” features music-box piano and soulful single note guitar playing. According to Coenen, this track was written for his girlfriend. Still, on the lighter side, but in a depressive mood, “Still Bleeding” joins Progressive with Gothic/Doom Metal, and is a beautiful ballad, in the style of The Gathering.

Obviously, in talking about a guitarist’s solo album, there are a handful of shredding moments, when Marcel Coenen unveils all his technique and clever improvising. Although going full shred, tracks such as “The Shrink” and “New Race” never leave Progressive Metal territory entirely.

A highlight among the uncommonly styled tracks, “Skill Factor” brings forth Marcel’s Jazz incarnation. The song reminds of the more Jazz-ish work by Tony MacAlpine from Planet X.

If you think of yourself as being an eclectic person, or if you’re looking for something new on the Metal arena, Colour Journey will keep you entertained and amazed for days to come. The album is full of musical twists and interesting turnarounds amongst the various tracks. The diverse landscape of sounds contained in the record make for an exciting experience that will surely take a while to get used to, but will also keep you interested for a quite a long time.