THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW

After some very good albums in the years before this album, Guy Manning finally reached a standard he should be happy with. This is the same standard as Bilston House and Number 10. I do not know the albums between this album and Bilston so please forgive me if I in the review of A Matter Of Life And Death or any other albums says the same. But The View From My Window is of an excellent standard.

There are no outstanding bring-the-house-down track on this album. Just a stream of high quality music. But my only gripe with this album is the dot over the i. One or two outstanding tracks. So that is the negativity I have about this album.

So over to the objective and the positive stuff then. Right......... Guy Manning has left behind his let's-see-iff-reggae-or-metal-works-for-me phase and returned to what he can best and very few in UK does better than him: Good crafted melancholic songs. He thankfully keeps to this formula throughout this one hour long album.

The songs are both varied and full of interesting details. I am not sure of Manning is influenced by The Tangent or the other way round. But there are a lot of similarities. There is also a lot of references to Moody Blues, Bob Dylan, Beatles and Strawbs. All songs has their own identity and DNA profile. The View From My Window is indeed an album of songs and not musically a concept album. Lyric wise; maybe it is. I have forgotten to do my background research this time. Anyway; the songs are both varied and melancholic. The twenty minutes long Dreams has a lot of symphonic prog elements in it, although it is not in the same street as an ELP song. It is more subtle than that where it winds itself through various themes. The same can be said about the rest of the album too. The main instrument is tangents. But both guitars and saxophones works very well in their supporting roles. I think Guy Manning has extracted maximum value out of each songs here.

This is an album which requires a lot of time. I have spent six weeks on it. Not by constant listening though. I have given it some spins and then thought about it while listening to other bands. Then given it some more spins and repeated the same procedure. This album requires a lot of time. Maybe more time than a busy human being can afford. But given time; this is an excellent album. Guy Manning has done it again. A big thumbs up for the artwork, btw.

Best tracks is the title track and Dreams.

4 stars

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