This album marks the second solo release form the Rhapsody guitarist. I really like the Demonheart E.P. and I've been anxiously awaiting this full album. Besides being a big fan of Rhapsody, I also enjoyed very much Luca's first solo release, King Of The Nordic Twilight, released a few years ago. Aside from being largely Rhapsody-like sounding, it offered a few twists in the overall sound that gave it a sense of uniqueness and an identity other than just sounding like left over Rhapsody material. As far as this new album, sadly, aside from a couple of others, the best tracks can also be found on the Demonheart E.P.

After three very close and thorough listens, there's only a few instances where the songwriting and song arrangements caught my interest. Most songs feature the big bombastic Rhapsody style choruses (which are almost all good by the way), it's just that the other parts of the songs (i.e. verse sections) sound very uninspiring and even weak at times. Olaf Hayer once again handles the lead vocals and I feel that his voice has limitations for the style of music here. I really like his voice a lot and he sounds better on songs like War Of The Universe or Prince Of The Starlight which have more of a Stratovarius-like arrangement and sound. His band Dionysus is about to release their debut album soon and if he sticks to the vocal style that suits the strength of his voice, it should be a good one!

The overall sound is very epic with lots of orchestration and very extensive use of choirs. The music, by the most part, is typical speedy Rhapsody-style Power Metal. A few very clever instrumental passages and changes are found throughout and the keyboard styles are very different than what is found on Rhapsody albums. They have a more futuristic and "spacey" sound which I think Luca was trying for to fit the overall theme of the album. Timeless Ocean, for what it's worth, is a decent epic, slow and heavy power ballad that works very well. Luca's latest attempt at combining celtic and folk elements with Power Metal in the song New Century's Tarantella results in a somewhat bizarre and almost laughable outcome. The Power Metal guitar and drum parts are mixed in with passages containing acoustic guitar, mandolin, pan flute (Zamfir anybody??) and even...gulp.....accordion....yee haw...it's polka time!! I love celtic music and celtic influenced metal, but I'm sorry, it just doesn't work here.

The one true highlight of this album certainly is the title track, Prophet Of The Last Eclipse. The song is a 12 minute epic that begins with a choir of voices before launching into an orchestrated and very intense Blind Guardian like opus with lots of voices and vocal chants. Olaf's voice is great on this song and everything else from the guitars to the drums, bass and keyboards is almost perfect. An amazing song!!

King Of The Nordic Twilight is a far better album, as are all the Rhapsody releases. I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish here as most of this album bears a strong resemblance to Rhapsody material. Most band members, when releasing solo material, often go for a different sound and expand themselves beyond the limitations of what they can accomplish being part of a band. It's not the case here, I hear very little difference and the results not nearly as good. If you're a huge fan of Luca's, you'll probably want to check this one out. Myself, I think it has some great songs, but overall, it's far from being a great album. You might want to first check out the Demonheart E.P. before buying this full length album, 2 of the 3 really killer songs on this release (Demonheart and Prophet Of The Last Eclipse) are also found on that one.