(Neo Progressive) = Elegant Simplicity = Palindrome (2001) = Purity And Despair (1998) = FLAC (image + .cue), lossless

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 5 from 4. May 2009

EAC extraction logfile from 27. December 2010, 11:17

Elegant Simplicity / Palindrome

Used drive : Optiarc DVD RW AD-7203S Adapter: 3 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V %s

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.00 | 4:46.38 | 0 | 21487
2 | 4:46.38 | 6:28.30 | 21488 | 50617
3 | 11:14.68 | 10:10.68 | 50618 | 96435
4 | 21:25.61 | 9:10.39 | 96436 | 137724
5 | 30:36.25 | 9:48.70 | 137725 | 181894
6 | 40:25.20 | 8:39.70 | 181895 | 220889
7 | 49:05.15 | 3:54.48 | 220890 | 238487
8 | 52:59.63 | 7:49.60 | 238488 | 273722

Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename E:\Music\Elegant Simplicity - Palindrome.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 10359C85
Copy CRC 10359C85
Copy OK

No errors occurred

AccurateRip summary

Track 1 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [7A97243B]
Track 2 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [662777B1]
Track 3 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [E94567AB]
Track 4 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [FD90041F]
Track 5 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [7948BA3F]
Track 6 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [E525832C]
Track 7 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [60929733]
Track 8 accurately ripped (confidence 1) [BF64AF38]

All tracks accurately ripped

End of status report

-===- E:\Music\Elegant Simplicity - Palindrome.flac
Extracted successfully
Conclusion: this track is CDDA with probability 100%
Tempfile successfully deleted.

Practically a one-man band, ELEGANT SIMPLICITY is headed by composer, arranger, programmer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Steve McCabe. Their material is highly keyboard- and guitar-oriented melodic prog that will alternately remind you of CAMEL, GENESIS, The ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST, The BEATLES and Mike OLDFIELD. Between 1992 and 1995, McCabe released 7 instrumental cassettes and then hired vocalist Ken Senior (from neo-prog band EVOLUTION), along with a few guest musicians who appeared on subsequent albums. Since 1996, the 'band' has released practically one album a year.

No one cassette from the first era particularly stands out (although "Inside the Hurting" and "Endless Longing" feature no guitar whatsoever). The band's better vocal cd's are "Architect of Light" and "The Nature of Change" - the latter is mostly made up of straightforward 80's neo-prog tunes but also includes an interesting 43-minute instrumental suite. As for purely instrumental albums, the recommended ones are "Purity and Despair", which blends folk themes with jazz and some classical bits, and "Anhedonia" featuring Streven McCabe as sole instrumentalist once again. The band clearly favours soft ballads although doesn't shun a much more aggressive approach on the epic tracks. The flaws: some numb programming (drums) occasionally spoils the ambience and the melodies, a little too lengthy at times, aren't always captivating.

Recommended if you like simple, smooth melodic prog like CAMEL, BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST and ODYSSICE.