FOUR PIECES

Cailyn Lloyd is a female American multi-instrumentalist, who appears to have started her musical career in London, England, playing the guitar in a number of small bands.Upon returning to the States she became a multi-instrumentalist and after giving birth to a healthy family she got active again, recording an EP in 2008 titled ''New world in blue'' and collaborating later with vocalist Dani Daly for the creation of the album ''True lies and other fairy tales''.In 2012 Cailyn recorded her second EP ''Four pieces'', playing all instruments by herself.

Not a very imaginative title to say the truth, this EP contains -as expected- four long instrumental cuts, three of which are adaptions on works by composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, Antonin Dvorak and Samuel Barber.Let's get straight to the nice discoveries of the album, first and foremost Cailyn avoids any relation to annoying sound programming and really plays all instruments naturally.The production is quite nice and she appears to be a decent performer on the instruments.Her overall style reminds me a lot of Dutch veterans ODYSSICE, these reworkings sound pretty tasteful and melodic throughout with some good guitar solos and sentimental atmospheres.On the other hand the material is pretty guitar-dominated with slow tempos and rare escapes from the emotional guitar solo-stylings, not having enough room for keyboards or piano, even if playing a style requiring the pronounced use of keyboards.This results to a similarity between the pieces' atmospheres, which is not a nice thing in my books.''Adagio'' is definitely the best of all reworkings with some very cinematic keyboards in the opening minutes and some beautiful guitar work.''Nocturne'' distinguishes as the only original composition in here, having some evident CAMEL influences and sounding a bit bluesy at moments.There's even some notable PINK FLOYD inspirations during the softer parts, but also a very reduced keyboard role.

Maybe I am a bit too harsh, but as a whole this effort isn't what you'd actually call recommended.Very melodic and warm music with symphonic overtones, lacking original themes and balanced instrumentation.Lloyd though appears to be an excellent musician and I admit that I expect a monster personal release by her.Fans of ODYSSICE and similar groups are the ones to take a chance on this...2.5 stars.