US: The Ghost Of Human Kindness

Cover	Release	Style
	2004	symphonic rock
	Label

	Website
	www.the-music-of-us.com
	Contact
	info@the-music-of-us.com
	Playing Time	Cat. N°
	67'42"
	Review by	Rating
	Luc Descamps	7/10
	Review
The Dutch band US have just released their third album. They did the financing and the whole of the production themselves and I’m afraid it shows. One needs to listen to the cd a few times to be able to appreciate the music and I must say I’m glad to have done this, because there’s quite some potential here. There are only five tracks, all very long compositions in a classical, symphonic rock style keeping the middle between the early Genesis, Eloy and the Kraut-rock movement. There are a lot of rhythm and theme changes in the compositions and most of the components sound quite nice, but there’s a lack of fluency in those changes. “Full Circle” for instance ends with a marvellous guitar solo but the very ending of the song is ever so poor. These are all shortcomings that could have been avoided if there had been a good producer. Also the sound of the instruments doesn’t seem to be right. One needs a good equalizer to make the sound acceptable. The drums sound very powerless and hollow although there’s nothing wrong with the drummer’s technique. All this of course is a question of money and if there’s no record company involved, this is a major problem. And yet, I have grown to like this album. There’s a lot of nostalgy coming from it, there’s a good balance between powerful progrock and melodic symphonic rock and Peter’s guitar sounds wonderful (the solo on “The Dream” is of mere beauty). The singing however is very poor, I think this is something the band should think about. “Grand Canyon” is a very peaceful, very beautiful song, and the basic melody reminds of the southern American rock of the seventies, but the singing is ever so poor, especially the chorus kind of breaks the song. By the way, the ‘bridge’ from the instrumental intermezzo to the basic melody and singing is perfect in this song. The cd comes with a nice booklet, including full lyrics and great cover art-work. To cut a long story short, “The Gost of Human Kindness” is certainly worth while listening to, but could have been so much better with a professional producer. Let’s hope Us will find a good record company very soon!
Musicians
Jos Wernars: bass guitar, acoustic & electric guitars, e-bow Stephan Christiaans: vocals and backing vocals Ernest Wernars: keyboards Paul van Velzen: drums & percussion Peter ‘glad2bback’ de Frankrijker: lead guitar
Tracklist
Full Circle 19’28” Domes 14’22” Grand Canyon 8’31” The Dream 7’58” The Ghost of Human Kindness 17’18”