THE BOOK OF HOURS

Too flawless, too perfectly arranged, performed and engineered, in brief, too masterpiece-like to be a masterpiece. I suspect this music was not composed with real inspiration but very rationally constructed by a very cool head. Looks like the artist carefully collected all the prog cliches which have stood the test of time best of all, and combined them in neatest possible way. Only a few moments of The Book Of Hours Pt II have soul. The rest seems pre-programmed by a hypothetical soft for composing prog rock - in fact I don't know if such soft really exists, but if it does, it must produce music of the same kind as The Book Of Hours by Agropelter. Nothing but armchair academism. Just remember how emotional, thrilled, agitated, inventive - and often riskily inventive! - were most of 70s-90s prog masterpieces. And now, it came to this absolutely rational and schematical mode of writing? to a sort of 'prog sure bet' as a norm? Not an achievement I'd say. Banks and Fripp were never afraid to risk. And the 70s-90s prog heroes really knew how to make a melody. A melody, not a chosen variant from some approbated set of chords and musical phrases (do you feel the difference?). On the contrary, Mr Olsen never risks, he strictly prefers solutions which are guaranteed to meet the demands of highest standard. But a standard is nothing more than a standard, even if it's highest. In addition, Mr Olsen is quite weak in melody making. Just compare any track from the debut album by Agropelter to (for example) White Mountain from Trespass by Genesis. Strict following the win-win algorithm of prog rock instead of inventing new algorithms seems inexcusable even for well-experienced veterans like Kaipa or Spock's Beard. As for a newcomer... We all remember the times when Fripp or Emerson were newcomers. And they were revolutionists since their first steps in music. Now, in 2025, we got a debut album that brings nothing new, nothing unexpected. Well, I don't know how about anybody else, but I am dejected.

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