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Danny: Enchant is a name in the progressive rock that always makes me
curious to hear their newest release. I always bought every release,
although I wasn’t always convinced of their albums. Full of
excellent songs, some even great, but I almost never manage to
listen to a complete Enchant album in one time. But this new CD is
really different. This time I can not only listen to the whole
album, but I even press the replay button at the end.
There have been a lot of changes. Sean Flanegan is on the drums now,
for the second album already and he certainly is a worthy
replacement for Paul Craddick, to say the least. Bill Jenkins is the
new keyboard player, certainly contributing very well to the sound
that has changed a bit. It’s still Enchant, who have build up a very
own recognizable sound, with lots of progressive elements, due to
the special sound of Ted’s voice and the structure of the songs. The
production of the new album is superb. From time to time this music
gives me a ‘It Bites’ feeling, because of the voice of Ted that
sounds a bit like Francis Dunnery, but especially because of the
sudden rhythmic changes and the surprising breaks. I listened to
their previous albums and the ‘It Bites’ reference wasn’t there yet.
There certainly is a lot more variation in the sounds and tracks and
also in the vocals. This surely is the best Enchant album ever.
A
proof of the It Bites sound can be heard in the first track,
“Sinking Sand”. You can download it on their site, so you can check
out what I mean. (www.theoasis.cd).
It’s one of the heavier tracks of the album, with a great guitar
solo, which is almost present in every track. The song ends with a
bass break, joined in by a ‘Hornsby’ piano and shortly after that
the guitar makes this brilliant trio-solo complete to end the track.
The title track “Tug Of War” is a very rhythmic track with a very
catchy chorus with great vocal harmonies. Great bass riff. The song
ends with a strong keyboard riff going through the vocals that
slowly fade out.
“Holding The Wind” is one of the “harder to get into” tracks. It
contains a very long, very entertaining instrumental middle piece.
This time the drums are the initial sound for this intermezzo,
filled in with guitars but especially the keyboards are on their
best this time.
“Beautiful” is like it’s called, a beautiful ballad, nothing more,
but who wants more?
“Queen Of The Informed” is carried by a strong riff build by heavy
guitar, bass and percussion. Again a long instrumental intermezzo
makes this song interesting for the whole 7 minutes. Impressive
guitar solo.
“Living In A Movie” is a demonstration of the diversity of Ted’s
voice. From low to high, from quiet to loud all in a very emotional
way.
”Long Way Down” is a track that focuses more on the vocal harmonics.
The acoustic guitar appears in “See No Evil”. The rest of this track
is just good. Problem is that a good song doesn’t attract attention
amongst a whole bunch of great songs.
”Progtology” is an instrumental, with lots of progressive
ingredients, brought superbly by the guitar and keyboards and again
some impressive bass playing.
“Comatose” is together with the opening track one of my personal
favourites of this album. A ballad that starts with piano and
vocals, to explode into an emotional chorus, followed by a thrilling
guitar solo.
The artwork also deserves to be mentioned. The cover contains
something from every previous album, as if to say, this album spans
all of the previous. “Tug Of War” will be available also as Special
Edition slipcase version with 28 page colour booklet and the live
bonus track “Below Zero”.
This review is too short to tell everything about this album.
There’s so much variation, that it’s really hard to put it on paper.
Spock’s Beard should be warned for their next tour. Enchant will be
a very strong (support?-)act.
Bobo: “Tug of war”.
Wasn’t that the title for a long forgotten Paul McCartney album ?
Sure it was and as is the case with Sir Paul’s material, Enchant
have once again emphasized on the true skills of songwriting making
sure strong melodies prevail. As the band describes themselves to be
a musical ‘sponge’ for sure they once again absorbe a multitude of
influences yet they once again blend them into something which is
unmistakably Enchant. ‘Sinking sand’ opens in a fusion kind of way
but once the unique voice of Ted Leonard enters the arena adding his
Steve Walsh element to the music it’s Enchant all over again. I
especially like the softer passages where the vocal harmonies fully
shine ! When you carefully dissect an Enchant composition you become
aware that these guys know how a studio works, what can be achieved
and how a song should be build in order to stand out when compared
to other bands. The balance between the instruments is perfect
giving the necessary room for solo’s when the time is right such as
the synth right at the end of the titletrack. Although singer Ted
Leonard might one day be the ideal replacement should James LaBrie
decide to leave Dream Theater, Enchant continuously ‘holds it’s
horses’ when it comes to delivering really powerful songs and
blasting solo’s. The band continues to aim for the perfect song
structure thus putting all freaky technical solo’s to one side. This
results in some of their work to sometimes sound like good honest
AOR as during ‘Beautiful’.
We all know that live Enchant does
indeed sound much harder, much louder than on record but once again
Ed Platt’s bassplaying sounds ever so clear and powerful on this
disc. So beware when he’ll take this material on the road ! I
sincerely hope the balance between the instruments will still be OK
because on “Tug of war” the interventions of keyboardplayer Bill
Jenkins are well placed but played in a rather subtle way. The
moment guitar, bass or drums will be too loud all that subtlety will
be totally gone. But here, thank god, we still have all of the
band’s latest output on CD which means the mix is done in order to
let all the instruments shine equally. ‘Progtology’ is a great
instrumental where guitar and keys interact. Pitty Jenkins didn’t
use a real Mellotron to evoke the choir parts. Platt also sees the
possibility to display his marvellous technique on bass. The spine
which runs through ‘Comatose’ certainly has to be Jenkins’ piano but
I don’t understand why for these important sessions he doesn’t use
an authentic grand piano as the dynamics and warmth of such an
instrument would sound so much better.
Enchant keeps on delivering album after album of the same maturity
but it’s as if the growth has stopped with their previous album. I
have been waiting for years for the ultimate Enchant song and I’m
still waiting. I’m dead certain these guys can deliver a true
classic but it simply does not happen. How much more time do we have
to give them ? How much time do they need ?
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