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It’s strange how people tend to only
look at bands such as Spock’s Beard, Flower Kings, Porcupine Tree or
Dream Theater in order to stick on the label of ‘productive band’
when it concerns to revival of progressive rock. For sure most
‘other’ artists tend to deliver only a handful CD’s during their
existence but in the case of the American band Glass Hammer things
most certainly look much different. By releasing their brandnew
album “Shadowlands”, our US friends deliver their eight album under
the moniker of Glass Hammer and once again it has become a
collection of authentic vintage prog sounds the way we like ‘em best
!
Prior to Glass Hammer Steve Babb
released the album “The final catastrophe” as Wyzard with Fred
Schendel helping him out on keyboards. Around the same time they put
their respective ideas and talent together to help singer Tracy
Cloud on her album “Love changes”. Cloud later on repaid the favour
by singing on Glass Hammer’s “Perelandra” album. Maybe those early
days really cemented the partnership between Babb and Schendel no
doubt admiring the same seventies icons. From their debut as Glass
Hammer “On to evermore” onwards right until the recent
“Shadowlands”, the band has melted all the right symphonic moves
into a waterfall of progressive delight. For their latest collection
of epics Steve and Fred have used amongst others the talents of
singers Susie Bogdanowicz and Walter Moore next to using the latest
modern recording technology in order to record both digital and
mainly analogue equipment as cristalclear as possible. The duo most
certainly are ace producers in their favourite musical field having
produced albums by Volare and Somnambulist under the name of Sound
Resources. The perfect proof that these guys’ interest in music
reaches far wider than solely prog, the duo also releases trancelike
ambient-techno-dance music as TMA-2 who has issued two albums so
far. But what about “Shadowlands” then ? Well, you can really tell
it’s Glass Hammer as most of the influences remain. No doubt YES has
been very influential in both their lives which sounds very
transparent through the Glass Hammer compositions.
With no less than seven different
voices present on this album, a string trio and both Schendel and
Babb playing the mighty mellotron, “Shadowlands” has indeed become a
much richer album, fuller what arrangements are concerned and by
using a decent amount of acoustic instruments also much more
detailed. For some strange reason the opening section for ‘So close,
so far’ reminds me of “Point of know return” era Kansas, accessible
yet wonderfully arranged. Once the vocals enter however I
immediately think of Starcastle. Fact is I also hear synthsolo’s
through the vocal passages something which I also detect when
listening to Terry Lutrell singing whilst Herb Schildt delivers his
Moog solo’s as during Starcastle’s “Fountains of light” album. A
couple of authentic Steve Howe-like chords suddenly change the
rhythm of the song completely making way for Flo Paris’ vocals. Fred
Schendel’s adoration for Steve Howe goes a long way when he delivers
some ace steel guitar making certain parts sound as if they were
lifted from “Close to the edge” ! The love for Yes continues when
the intro for ‘Run Lisette’ unleashes some powerful Rickenbacker.
Combined with pipe organ the song gets close to the feel of
‘Awaken’. No samples have been used as this pipe organ has been
recorded at the First United Methodist Church in Waynesville, NC. In
fact all of ‘Run Lisette’ is a feast if you’re into melodic keyboard
parts. Towards the end of the song all attention goes towards the
male and female vocals which sadly are not of the same caliber as
the perfect instrumentation. Similarities with Kansas become even
clearer when violin is introduced.
After a rather long and uninspired
introduction I nevertheless detect tiny Kit Watkins interventions on
keyboards and even some “Relayer” era Patrick Moraz during ‘Farewell
to shadowlands’. The main attraction here however is once again the
pipe organ. Again ‘Longer’ takes a lot of time before it finally
kicks off. As I didn’t read the accompanying booklet before, I
thought it concerned an original Glass Hammer composition where I
heard a speeded up version of the melody from Dan Fogelberg’s hit
‘Longer’. But when the singing started there was no more doubt :
this was the Dan Fogelberg classic but delivered in true progressive
style ! I’m sure the original composer will be pleased !
The
album closes with what Neal Morse would describe ‘an epic to end all
epics’. ‘Behind the great beyond’ begins with classical,
Baroque-like acoustic guitar before it evolves towards a mixture of
Transatlantic moves and Yes from the “Magnification” and
“YesSymphonic” era.
The
latter is mainly the case due to the integration of an authentic
strings trio. As this lengthy song develops another pure classical
intermezzo is introduced by means of a Morish acoustic guitarsolo.
The synth follows the vocal lines whilst electric piano once again
delivers some of the experimental nature of Kit Watkins and once
that violin comes to te fore there’s no escape from the Kansas mould
! After some rhythmic changes the Baroque feel is once again
introduced yet this time around firmly integrated into the Glass
Hammer music. The roaring organ contains some Ekseption (Rick van
der Linden) magic whilst the classical nature of some of the
arrangements rubs shoulders with Minimum Vital. The song ends with
some mellotron and bass sounds which in a way contain a similar
atmosphere as the outro for “Close to the edge”. So once again Glass
Hammer has delivered a wonderful album which all lovers of superb,
melodic symphonic rock will enjoy to the fullest.
Listening to all the material on “Shadowlands” it’s like listening
to Yes and Kansas in one studio so if you’re a fan of one of them or
better still both of these icons, then you’re in for a real treat !
This incredible leap-year couldn’t begin any better ! |
