OLD SOULS

A true concept-album with a very peculiar and rich atmosphere, very well illustrated (the artwork is superb). Rick Miller is really progressing, towards... - idk, "All paths are the same, leading nowhere"

I have discovered Rick Miller through his track "The Journey", which I thought was pretty good. Then, some time later, I came across another track, and I was like, wait, isn't that The Journey? I'm usually not that sensible to artists repeating lines or a certain style, but Rick Miller's early tracks often sound exactly the same, like he's trying again and again to express the same thing, looking for himself. Yet, it seems his music has evolved through the years. My perspective still needs more insight, I haven't listened to everything he's done, but compared to previous works, Old Souls truely stands out.

For a first, I do not feel again this repetivity. - Not that the music and atmosphere would be completely all around the place, it still retains a consistent broad atmosphere, that really defines Rick Miller in general and this album in particular.

Well, so, jumping to it. Old Souls is a true concept-album. It deals with time through its various aspects, in part the passage of time through one's life, and in part the passage of time through the ages, and how the human soul can still relate to "old souls". The writing and composing are both quite clear AND rich and fantastic, a mixture that I rarely see combined so well. The 1st track, "Time's way", introduces the overall theme of the album. A few piano notes, followed by some guitar and drums attack. It's not that original, and at this point the melodic atmosphere hasn't fully shined through. Then it starts to calm down and become weird - that kind of weirdness typical of Miller, but enriched in this album. Rick sings "Breathe in my soul", and we're not entirely sure whether he's speaking to time or to old souls, both fitting. He goes shakespearian, "To stay or to go, to have and to hold", basically elaborating on a universal theme that old souls and new souls can relate to. The following is even more transparent, and that stanza, the chorus, really represents to me the core of this album: Dream of me, a voice in the dark. / Take me home, old souls never part. / Shadows cast by sins of the past. / Time will have its way.

The rest of the album journeys through the paths of various names from literature. The inspiration drawn from literature really shines through, as one can feel that it's not random names dropped, but that there is something about them, about their character and soul, that Miller wants to express, notably Guinevere, Castaneda's Don Juan, and Don Quixote. Lost Karma also evokes Indian spirituality and transmigration, which is a way that this connection to old souls can concretize. Right before the end comes the track Don Quixote, a masterpiece where we go through the journey of Don Quixote's mind, reflecting on the modern world (his, or ours, or both) and how it's lost "its need for men / Of chivalry and moral sense". After a transition with a narrator stating "Finally after so little sleeping, / And so much reading, / His brain dried up, and he went, / Completely out of his mind." After which Don Quixote speaks (sings) again and expresses his decision to become a knight. The "reading" part really helps relating to Don Quixote, even if we're not to embrace such a lunatic enterprise, as the reading, the literature inspiration, really shows throughout the album, and listeners of this album, when they enjoy it, will typically be readers too, perhaps feeling also a disillusionment at a world where knights are gone (if they have even ever existed), where there seems to be no true point in living - "The maddest thing a man can do, / Is waiting here to die". After Don Quixote's last lines, the last purely musical passage arrives, made of about three different pieces following each other, at the middle of which one can clearly hear a windmill turning loudly. All of which leaving to the listener's imagination - but the theme is so clear that we are pushed to actually filling up with our own images.

After that comes a "reprise" of Time's Way, suggesting the circling of time and perfectly completing the album.

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