ALL TOMORROWS

Although tracing its origins back to the United States and Britain, the progressive rock movement has since moved on to infect the underground of virtually every country on Earth. Portugal and Spain were far from the last countries to be infected, although I cannot say I have heard much music of the progressive variety from these nations before. The truth is, while 'regressive rock' band Daymoon are considered a Portuguese ensemble, this is very much an album that is coming from a great many places, in more ways than one. Produced by Andy Tillison of the well known band The Tangent, Daymoon's official debut 'All Tomorrows' borrows many conventions of a great many styles, and does most of them an impressive justice. At the same time though, Daymoon's variety is countered somewhat by the fact that while the band does a great job at emulating the sounds of others, a lack of individual identity to their sound can make for a less immediate listen than what I may have hoped for.

Daymoon is the brainchild of one Fred Lessing, a man of Portugal who has released five albums before this, although he playfully and perhaps all-too modestly labels his previous work as 'utter crap'. The music here has all of its origins with Lessing, although the actual execution of 'All Tomorrows' comes from a great many places. If I am not mistaken, Fred took the tracks and sent them out to many different musically networked friends of his, who recorded their parts and sent their contributions back, creating a piece of the whole. This is a very interesting and modern way of putting together an album, although as one might expect, the album lacks a sense of coherence from the number of contributors. There are parts here that are taken straight out of jazz fusion, followed by a song that sounds every bit a piece of early Genesis canon, and plenty of small, but none-so-subtle homages to classic prog rock bands. All of these are bound together by Andy Tillison's somewhat underwhelming production of the album, but there is still the sense that while most of these tracks are well written and performed, the slight variances in quality and wide changes in style along the way make the album feel less and less like a start-to-finish work, and more like a compilation of songs from a bunch of different, albeit similar bands.

Although the album structure is a bit weak and even hodge-podge, the music itself is very well done, even if it is largely derivative from identifiable sources. There is a great cross section of some of the best prog rock sounds here, including quirky jazz fusion, epic symphonic prog, and even some moments towards the end of the album that sound like they could have been plucked from the early Pink Floyd work. The singer here is fairly good, although its clear that he tries to blend in with whatever style the band is playing at the time; largely alternating between a distinctly British accent like Peter Gabriel's, or a more typically Portuguese inflection. The vocals are never particularly brilliant, but work well, and especially in the parts with the Genesis-sounding prog instrumentation, the vocals really help to give the added authentic feel of 70's prog rock to the band's sound. Personally, the regressive rock direction is not my thing- being someone who tends to go for the darker or more truly progressive side of prog- but for what Daymoon was trying to accomplish with the sound here, they did it quite well.

A fine album with many merits and great collaborations across the board, Daymoon is a very promising project in the sense that with the sheer variety that Lessing and company sport here, I can only imagine what the next batch of songs from their tentative next recording will be. A promising introduction for this band!

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