NORTH STAR

And the answer is yes, they're back once more. Not only back with a new brief album, but also back to the beloved sound of their Window Of Life and Fallen Dreams & Angels era, which can't be anything but good to these ears. And because of the musical scope and conceptual outline, it feels like a proper album indeed, despite its rather short playing time, within the typical range of an EP record.

The overall sound takes advantage of acoustic textures, subtly merged with electric brush-strokes, phantasmagoric choral voices (listen to the end track Fall Away, very much in an Entangled mood), and sensible percussion, being the heavier intervention of the drums in track 2 As Dead as a Dodo.

The album opens with exquisite arpeggiated piano, and then great electric guitar licks paving the way for a delicious vocal melody. After that the guitars take the lead, with Nick Barrett showing stupendous classical-meet-flamenco fingerpicking a la Hackett (listen to the beginning of the last track) and an electric solo crafted for future anthologies in the last couple of minutes of track 3 Phoenician Skies.

I think this will not change anybody's appreciation of the band, but it is a fine new jewell to be cherished in their already established legacy.