THE GUNS OF MARYGOLD

This fine Italian band is rooted in 1994, most members are from the Marillion (Fish-era) cover band Wildfire. Marygold started to play covers from Marillion and Genesis but gradually composed more own material, this resulted in the debut CD entitled The Guns Of Marygold. The vocals are in English and the running time is like that from the 'good old LP's', at about forty minutes, nostalgia time!

1. Hara-kiri Show (7.25) : The intro contains a spacey sound, it evokes Hackett his ominous sounding song Land Of A Thousand Autumns. Then a compelling rhythm with lots of breaks and shifting moods, it sounds very dynamic featuring dramatic vocals, fiery guitar and fluent synthesizer flights.

2. Crows On The Tree (6.32) : A mellow track with melancholic vocals and fragile guitar work, followed by beautiful guitar play with the evolume pedal and sensitive piano. The final part delivers a mid-tempo with howling electric guitar, very moving!

3. Marygold (7.21) : First twanging guitars in the vein of early Gensis in a dreamy climate with warm vocals and a slow synthesizer solo. Halfway a break, then a mid-tempo and we can enjoy delicate work on organ, inspired vocals and slightly distored guitar.

4. Sunflowers (5.21) : This composition contains lots of variation and flowing changing climates, from dreamy with sparkling piano to a fluent rhythm with flashy synthesizer work, fiery guitar and passionated vocals.

5. Tania Stands... (2.56) : A short song with wonderful interplay between the acoustic guitar (twanging and frequent flageolets), halfway there is some delicate flute, simply beautiful!

6. The Wizard (9.46) : After strong drum beats and fiery guitar the atmosphere turns into dreamy with a slow rhtyhm delivering soaring keyboards, sensitive electric guitar with volume pedal play and warm vocals. Gradually the tempo become faster and the sound more lush and bombastic, culminating in exciting interplay between guitar and keyboards along passionated vocals, this is Marygold at their best! Suddenly the music stops and a bell rings (my Bordercollie Lola looked confused at me or she had to bark ..!), then the music returns with a mellow climate featuring wonderful symphonic prog with lush keyboards and howling electric guitar, I am on cloud #9!

Marygold sounds very warm and beautiful and is recommended to fans of pleasant and melodic prog like Genesis, Marillion, Pendragon, Camel and IQ but a bit more subdued, I would say that Marygold is (to quote Fish) "..for the romantics in the audience..".