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It sounds like Cairo" couldn't wait to let you hear the latest that they have to offer. Unlike the usual Prog formula of a three to five minute album opening intro instrumental section, Bret Douglas jumps right in the his vocals at the start of, The Underground." The remainder of, Time of Legends," does pretty well living up to the promises offered in that beginning. The best thing about the disc is that it's never stagnant. Time of Legends" is only 46 minutes long, but Cairo" manages to pack quite a bit into that time. The instrumentals hum along with keyboards mixing seamlessly with guitar fills. Bret Douglas' vocals, reminiscent of Jon Anderson's, are well mixed, always audible without ever overwhelming the music. If I had to pick a single word to describe the album, it would be fluid."

That might be partially be attributed to the departure of guitarist, Alex Fuhrman between the release of Conflicts and Dreams" (1998) and the recording of, Time of Legends." Without the presence of a competing official guitarist, keyboardist Mark Robertson stands alone as the main melody maker for Cairo", and he did a good job stepping up his game for this album. The more keyboard oriented, and therefore lighter-sounding album does serves to make the band sound even more like Yes", the ideal they've always aimed for, but it's forgivable, since Time of Legends" is the best album of the three they've made to date.

One of the highlights of the disc is Scottish Highlands," a short instrumental filled with lush keyboard melodies. It does a great job evoking the pastoral beauty of that part of the world. The best song is probably, Prophecy," an epic which clocks in at just over ten minutes, but as good as those two tracks are, it's the last three songs that make the album. The first of the three, Cosmic Approach" is a suitably spacey creature driven along by Jeff Brockman's frantic percussion work. Robertson overlays that with long, sweeping notes that give the impression of distance, and you just get the feeling you're on an endless voyage. Coming Home" follows up, with Douglas once again jumping in right at the start of a track that just sounds very optimistic that the protagonist will make it through all his troubles and actually make it home.

"The Fuse" closes out the album in a frenetic instrumental mode, racing along as if it were a lit fuse heading towards a waiting explosive. At one point, Robertson and guest guitarist Luis Maldonado engage in a bit of call and response, which ends with the keyboardist breaking out his clean synth tones for an extended solo. About halfway through, the band pauses for a few seconds, as if closing up shop.

Instead, it seems like Robertson needed a couple of seconds to locate his Hammond B3 organ, as he unleashes another rollicking solo. The song rolls along for about 9 minutes, and never does quite explode, but by the time it does end, you kind of wish that it kept going.