by progrock.com | Mar 8, 2015 | Reviews
Band: The Gentle Storm
Album: The Diary
Reviewer: Nick from When Prog and Power Unite
Official Arjen Lucassen Website
Official Anneke van Giersbergen Website
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The Gentle Storm is the newest in a growing list of projects from Dutch maestro Arjen Anthony Lucassen, and features lyricist and vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen. While that pairing alone should have any prog fan turning their head, the pairings’ debut work, The Diary, is more than simply great composer meets great vocalist. The album comes in two discs, one “gentle” and one “storm”, featuring softer and heavier versions of the same songs. But don’t be fooled into thinking the softer album is simply your typical stripped down acoustic album. Instead the songs, while seemingly built from the same cores, are constructed quite differently on each disc.
The glue between the two discs is most certainly Anneke, who’s beautiful and melodic vocals shine through on both versions of each song. For those unfamiliar with her previous work, most famously on Devin Townsend Project albums, you are in for a treat. She manages to have a hauntingly beautiful timbre to her voice, but she has the ability to present it with significant power. Not to be confused at all with more “ballsy” female vocalists, she simply manages to hang on high notes without appearing thin.
Instrumentally I would say the “gentle” disc is certainly the more interesting of the two versions. There is an amazing diversity of instruments that put unique stamps all over the tracks. The “storm” album isn’t particularly heavy or metal by many standards, but has a traditional drum setup and is generally more guitar driven than its counterpart and is probably closer to Ayreon than Star One. The “gentle” tracks however bring full on folk and eclectic sounds that have not been seen since Ayreon debuted with The Final Experiment. The “gentle” album is also where you will likely notice what a fantastic job Arjen has done with the piano on this album, as it is featured prominently on several tracks.
One of the aspects I enjoyed about the “storm” album, is that the only keys are the piano; no minimoog, or synthesizers; truly a first for Arjen. With that in mind, if you take a moment to notice the sounds you’d so often associate with a keyboard patch on the albums and listen closely, you can fully appreciate how nice the plethora of instruments sound in their place. Even on the heavier “storm” album the violins, double bass, and other strings really stand out. The analog synths that Arjen has often employed has always been one of my favorite parts of his sound, and so for an album without them to be so good is a big credit to him.
Arjen’s songwriting and use of the many instrumentalists is stunning throughout both discs. Arjen clearly did not set out to make the “gentle” album more than an album featuring cheap acoustic versions usually used as b-sides and fillers by other artists. The thought and arrangement of the music clearly shines through, and the albums don’t feel identical songs with instruments swapped out. Anneke’s lyrics and vocals are captivating and powerful, as to be expected based on her recent collaborations. With every listen new songs and new parts always seem to stand out, and in the end this looks like another home run from Holland’s leading progressive mastermind.
Video for The Heart of Amsterdam
by progrock.com | Nov 23, 2014 | Reviews
…And out of the ashes of Unitopia arises the phoenix named United Progressive Fraternity (UPF), a Mark Trueack led band. Surrounding Mark are some familiar faces from Unitopia as well as two well-known special guests – Steve Hackett and Jon Anderson. The menagerie does not stop there as Ian Richie, Guy Manning, Steve Unrah, Claire Vezina, Guillermo Cides, Brittany and Holly Trueack, Jonathan Barrett and Steve Layton all are involved with UPF’s debut album, Fall in Love With the World – an album that takes listeners on a musical journey that brings forth questions of the current state of the world’s environment.
We Only Get One World works as the overture to Fall in Love With the World as the first few measures bring to mind an opening sequence to a science-fiction series – my ears hear Earth: Final Conflict. The introduction is as lush as you might expect from this well-crafted team of musicians. Backing vocals add to the sumptuous tones. A vocal “one world,” becomes more and more audible as though our lead is emerging from an other-worldly portal.
Choices We Made, an 8-minute track, illustrates what a great ride musically and emotionally we are on listening to this album. The soulful voice of Mark and the brass accompaniment from Marek Arnold set the tone for the environmentalist slant that takes shape as the album progresses. The song Water is foreshadowed here. The apex of this song occurs at the 5:10 mark where the sense of spinning has only been captured as well for me in the past by Genesis’s The Cage.
Intersection begins an implied trilogy of songs questioning listeners as they ask the question of “How Long?”
The Water, a song that has taken on many incarnations, has been refined for this album and features Jon Anderson on backing vocals. Mark’s native Australia has been suffering from more and more droughts and this is a song that resonates with many – not just Australians.
Don’t Look Back, Turn Left has taken a small amount of inspiration from the Doctor Who episode of a similar name (season 4 episode 11). This song is the second track on the album that infers an intersection and a choice must be made in order to save the planet.
Travelling Man (The Story of Eshu) is a 22-minute neo-prog epic full of interesting changes. Eshu is the morally ambiguous sprit of Chaos and Trickery on the roads and crossroads. This incarnation of Eshu seems to be full of trickery as the lyrics reference, “deceptive points of view lead to disarray… fool us time and time again…, another wrong direction” The crossroad is the third reference to the intersection of choices that must be made if we are, “going to take care of the planet”. Eshu then taunts the listener with the words “What if it never happened?” The tension builds at the 10:30 mark. Steve Unrah plays a spiccato passage with his violin to underscore the tension ultimately leading to the song’s resolution.
Fall in Love with the World is a just that – a love song to our planet. It is a pop song with wonderful melodies. Guy Manning’s mandolin harkens to Venice and Styx’s Boat on the River.
Overall, UPF puts forth a thought-provoking musically-rich album that shines as the band’s debut offering. The album’s themes tie together well both musically and lyrically and grow more compelling upon each listen.
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