Live At Last

If you just can't get enough of that progressive rock, then the eighth release by the Bay Area's Enchant is just the album for you. Containing two discs and a good two and a half hours of music, Live at Last documents, in its entirety, a March 2004 hometown concert at Imusicast in Oakland, CA. Like most prog rock bands, Enchant has been able to build a much stronger following in Europe than in the U.S., so its stateside concerts are relatively rare and the fans at this one sound like they had been waiting for a good long time. Enchant's energy is impressive and infectious, and their instrumental sound is suitably huge, with special kudos going to the resourceful and intelligent guitarist Doug Ott. Singer Ted Leonard has a fine voice and delivers lots of those big, operatic choruses that the prog genre is famous for -- unfortunately, in a live setting he has a distressing tendency to sing quite flat, which undermines the grandiosity of opuses like "Sinking Sand," "Acquaintance," and "Follow the Sun." The album's finest moment is actually an instrumental, the wryly titled "Progtology." The sound quality is spectacular, which is never a given with live albums. Recommended, with reservations as noted. ~ Rick Anderson