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“Individual Unique” is a solo project by Henry Meeuws, keyboard player
of Casual Silence, a symphonic/progressive rockband from Holland. He
plays all the instruments and is surrounded by a bunch of excellent
vocalists to assist him in performing this brilliant music.
The album
tells the story of the young artist Enzio, who goes full of ambition to
Florence. He gets a visit by the spirit of Michelangelo, who advises him
not to change the facade of the church of Lorenzo in a modern way, but
rather follow the ancient style of Michelangelo. He wants to convince
the town council, but they don’t believe him and put him in an
institution of mental disease. Nurse Vittoria gets him out of there. He
chooses for the passion for her instead of his love for his work and the
church never gets finished.
“Individual Unique” is the least I can say about Henry. The way he plays
all the instruments is unbelievable. You really have the impression
there’s a whole band of virtuosi performing. Normally he’s playing
keyboards with his band, but his guitarwork is certainly as impressive.
There’s
something special in his way of combining the instruments. He switches
the instruments very fast, sometimes only a few seconds per instrument,
which gives the music some special dimension. The switching of the
instruments is as fast as the changing of the vocals in “Thoughts” of
Spock’s Beard. Also his way of playing solos on the guitar is special.
He plays guitar solos in two voices, but the second guitar doesn’t
really play the second voice, but a synchronized second melody. You can
very clearly hear the two guitars, as if they are slightly separated in
time.
I can’t
review every song, as there’s too much happening to put it in words. My
two favourite tracks, “’Day’& ‘Night’” and “Tell Me”, two long songs
(about 9 minutes) give already enough material to fill up a whole
review. Beautiful vocals, brilliant piano, electric and acoustic guitar
solos, and so much more. And the more I listen to this CD the more they
all get to become favourites. The beautiful, quiet song “A Dream Left
Behind” also deserves to be mentioned. The beautiful vocals of Rob and
Marina and off course the music of Henry, deliver a unbelievable,
emotional ballad to close the album.
Only one
negative remark, the outro of “Make The Grade” is a piano solo of two
minutes, which is either too long, or not interesting enough. But this
is only 2 minutes of the 55, so don’t let this scare you off.
There’s
also a beautiful adaptation of “FuGA” from J.S. Bach. It’s when the
young artist passes a church and hears this song, but I doubt that he
heard this version, because there weren’t that much electric guitars
around at that time. But let’s get serious again, I certainly like the
piece. It should have lasted longer than these two minutes.
He has
probably found the perfect mix between progmetal and symphonic rock. I
think fans from both sides will like this album. Maybe it’s better if I
don’t call it progmetal at all, but progressive rock with a distorted
guitar from time to time. Hearing all this splendid vocals, I urgently
need to listen to Casual Silence, because three of them are from that
band.
Together with Henry Meeuws, that can’t go wrong.
This CD will be available on concerts of Casual Silence
or can be ordered (15 euro) at:
Henry Meeuws
Wolfsveld 63
5712 HJ Someren
Tel: + 31(0)493-494871
Toon Verhappen
Casual Silence Management
Tel: +31(0)40-2051959
E
Mail:
info@casualsilence.nl
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