THE CITY SLEEPS

I have always been, to put it as gentle as I can, sceptical towards this new wave of female fronted british bands. The bands in this scene has been hyped pretty well by Classic Rock Presents Prog. Hyping bands and scenes is like waving a piece of red scarf in the front of a bull = myself. In short, I was not directly interested when putting this album through it's paces.

And then I have to eat some humble pie.

Touchstone is reputed to be on the harder, edgy side of this scene. And their sound are undisputed pretty hard. But their songs are also pretty symphonic. Make that very symphonic at times. Symphonic like their forerunners Yes. And they also use both male and female vocals. The label "female fronted prog" does not really applies to this band at all unless you are sexist. And I am doing my best not to be sexist..... although failing by default. Hormones apart, the female vocals are surprisingly not such a big part of Touchstone's sound. But when it is there, it is nothing short of superb. I am seriously impressed with Touchstone's use of the resources they have at hand. That also goes for the use of keyboards, drums and guitars. Yes, bass too. Frankly, this band knows what they are doing and they are excellent on this album.

A couple of real killer tracks would had been a nice addition to this album. Unfortunate, they are absent here. But this album is by all standards a great album. It has a lot of intricate details and some great songs too. Like the killer track. I also suspect this is a slow growing album I will enjoy in the coming years and decades too. I am seriously impressed by this quality product.

4 stars