PRICKLY PEAR

Once again, thanks to a site like this we can discover to some new acts that are meaning to keep prog rock alive, if we turn to any side of the globe we will find some young bands trying to put their grain of sand and leave a mark on this realm, some of them fail, some of them have success, but the beauty of this is that there is always prog rock. Now, and thanks to Uwe I could listen to this young band that come from the United States called The Source, who had released one album previously, which sadly I have not listened yet, but this year they came up with their second record called "Prickly Pear" which contains 5 songs and a total time of 49 minutes, so a song average of almost 10 minutes.

The album kicks off with "Promised Land" song that caught my attention since the very first notes due to it's dense and complex musical style, the guitars and keyboards take the leadership, and after a couple of minutes the song slows down and vocals enter, and during it's 10 minutes we will find several little changes, the song is very rich, and in moments causes a sensation of happiness, there are great moments here full of complexity like in minute 7 when it turns a bit faster, and despite being a new band, their style takes some older style, I mean kind of retro prog.

"Star Dreamer", has a dreamy feeling indeed, with a soft and calm harmony and some mellow vocals, this is one of the shorter songs on this album, but it also have it's little changes and it's complexity, in some moments it may turn to a catchy and poppier song, but it is good anyways.

"Until Morning Time" is another of the epics on this album, and that retro prog feeling returns here mainly due to the keyboard sound and guitars, that sometimes remind me a bit to Yes, I can imagine Howe was an influence to The Source guitar player. Being a long song, it is obvious that here we will find several changes, all of them following a proper style that will take you to one short moment to another, at the half of the song a piano enters and gives a radical change to the melody, but again in some moments I reminds me to Yes, very nice song.

"Thin Air" is the other shorter song on the album, and begins again with a soft sound along with the melodic vocals, suddenly some heavier guitar appears, there are also some backing vocals there and a kind of funky guitar later, at the middle of the song drums and a nice piano sound appear creating a cool song.

"Castles in the Sky" is the last song of this album and it is the longest track reaching 15 minutes, the start is a bit slow but it is growing and progressing of course, there are some background organ over there , good guitar notes and after a couple of minutes it makes a stop in order to return with acoustic guitar and then vocals, after all the song remains very calm in moments it actually sounds kind of a ballad, but then there is another change with a guitar riff, I like a lot epic songs, and normally I put them as the best songs on the albums, this time it does not happen, this is a nice epic but that's it, there are better tracks on Prickly Pear, I believe this track would be better if they cut some redundant moments.

After all, it is a very nice album, with some symphonic moments but I believe this is a clear example of the so called "Crossover Prog". Claps for the band and keep the great work. My final grade is 3 stars.

Enjoy it!

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