HARVEST AORTA

After a six year wait comes the second full studio release from elusive experimental collective, Ephemeral Sun.

The Good: This album surprised me on two levels.

Firstly, the quality of the music is absolutely breathtaking. Whereas instrumental albums usually need an extra something in their compositions to make up for the lack of vocals, Harvest Aorta is just so perfect that a 10 mile 'no singing' zone is regulated around each copy of the release.

The second thing that blew me away was the album structure. Just four songs here. Opening with two longer tracks then one short leaves us with an aggregate running time of 28 minutes. A decent length which could have easily been rounded off with a solid 10~15 minute finale. And that's what I expected. But when the title track appeared I had to read it twice to make sure my eyes were not playing tricks on me...

41 minutes.

That's not epic, that's monstrous! Sure there are multi-part suites of similar duration, but a single track, and an instrumental at that!

Civilizations came and went, I missed the birth of my (imaginary) child and the first manned mission to Mars, but eventually this incredible journey came to an end (heralded by a wheezing accordion and backing vocals provided by farmyard animals).

I think it took me about two weeks to recover before revisiting this release, but since then I have listened to it maybe ten times and can safely say that it remains absolutely captivating. Whilst you could just leave it on in the background for ambient effect, to achieve full appreciation it requires full attention. Set aside some time in your day for Harvest Aorta then play it from start to finish with no interruptions, preferably just before going to sleep. You won't regret it.

The overall sound of the album is quite difficult to pin down. It's labelled on this site as progressive metal, but the abundance of lush multi-layered synthesizers make me more reminiscent of heavy prog with psychedelic/space rock elements.

The Bad: The production can a bit blunt at times, especially the drumming.

The Verdict: There were many excellent albums released in 2010, but was the only true masterpiece.

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