CARDINGTON

A front page news: Galadriel's Calibrated Collision Course has laid a delayed egg. That studio album from 2008 was heavily criticized by special collaborators, prog reviewers and ordinary members (here at Prog Archives, on the respective page, you can see how it was criticized and how lowly it was rated). I nevertheless dared suppose that it could announce a new paradigm for prog music, and now, with the release of a new studio album from Lifesigns, I see that this may be true. The opening track, lapidary entitled N (sic!), shows the band's approach to building the relationships between musical sounds following... no, not Galadriel's 2008 prescriptions but Galadriel's 2008 algorithm for making up a prescription. It sounds very unusual and fresh.

Another possible musical analogy is, perhaps unexpectedly, Haken. Early Haken, not fussy and clamorous The Mountain or glum and insipid Affinity, but magnificent Aquarius and intricate Visions. According to most of sources, Haken is 'heavy prog' while Lifesigns is 'neo- prog', but Martin Orford hates the term 'neo-prog' not without reason. Sometimes strict definitions produce confusions, and there's no reason to pay too much attention to tags. I can find a number of musical parallels between N and, exempli gratia, The Point Of No Return (the opening track from Aquarius) in melody making and arrangement techniques.

But with the track two, Voice In My Head, any hints of Galadriel and Haken disappear, and - quel passage! - we hear another Telephone. Do you remember? It's the second track of the previous (self-titled) album from Lifesigns. Now, four years later, the band exploits the same structure: track one is epic, long and complex, while track two has simple melody and simple rhythm and sounds almost dance-like. Okay, okay. The next track, Chasing Rainbows, is an excellent short song in the vein of Pendragon, Jadis or IQ... and then - quelle surprise! - the third Telephone begins! Hey guys, maybe enough? (Just to be clear: I do like Telephone. I like it very much, it's one of my faves from the band's debut!) But no, far from enough, the next track is again a reincarnation of Telephone! And only the closing track, Cardington, restores the initial atmosphere, it's a long epic suite with a lot of innovative moments, and the shade of Calibrated Collision Course is again here.

So, the album includes two amazing, absolutely incomparable epics, one beautiful short song and four Telephones. That's why I am so base and spiteful to give it only four stars. Otherwise, if the entire album was sustained at the level of its opening and closing track, even a five-star rating would be too low for it.

One of the problems in living at the end of the world, is that unless one has enough money to purchase overseas magazines at exorbitant rates, or spends valuable reviewing time searching out new bands, then I can often be late when it comes to discovering acts. So this is why in 2019 I am reviewing the 2017 second album of a band who released their debut four years earlier. It is the project of John Young, a musician I have reviewed multiple times before in other bands (Greenslade, Qango etc), and it is only he and drummer Martin Beedle (Cutting Crew, and principle drummer for "Mamma Mia!") who made it through to the second. Here they have been joined by Dave Bainbridge (Iona and others, one of my favourite musicians) and Jon Poole (Cardiacs, The Wildhearts ? if you ever see a copy of his solo Zappa tribute album 'What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?' then grab it, it is brilliant). So even before putting this on I had very high hopes indeed.

I certainly wasn't disappointed. John is known as a side man of some repute (he is touring as part of Bonnie Tyler's band as I write this), but it is something of a surprise that he isn't more widely known in his own right and as this is a beautiful album, with very strong vocals. It is delicate, temporal, and far more in keeping with Dave's band than Jon's, with vocals at the front and centre with superb arrangements keeping everything moving. All these guys have been around, all know what they are doing, and have relaxed into an album that is a sheer delight from start to end. There are again some guest guitarists on the album in the likes of Robin Boult (Fish), Menno Gootjes (Focus) and Niko Tsonev, and their solos are used with care, providing additional nuances and dynamics when required. This is a very songs-based progressive rock album, and can be played repeatedly, and bring a smile to the face each and every time. The guys are all playing with each other and for each other, as opposed to showing off their musical skill and dexterity, which they all have in spades. The only advantage of coming across an album a few years after it was released is that hopefully it will soon be time for the next one! Please!

In await of the announced new release 'Altitude' I rather coincidentally came back to this album. Released in 2017, but more or less ignored by me (so far). What a nice production! Not sure if they are able to top such compositions (time will tell?). Actually mastermind and keyboarder John Young has worked for non prog artists more or less. But this is his project aiming to create progressive rock music with an accessible highly melodic signature. Hereby he has Iona co-founder and guitarist Dave Bainbridge at his side, as well as Cardiac Jon Poole on the bass, finally drummer Martin 'Frosty' Beedle. He once worked with Cutting Crew amongst others, and also convinces here all over the place.

'Cardington' comes like a very solid string made of compelling song pearls, without exception. Where the particular end each turns out to be a sonic highlight. Both songs are crossing the ten minute border, are also provided with a broader complex nature and more symphonic styled as the rest, which occasionally is going to tend to Art Pop Rock. John Young pulls the strings with his keyboards, furthermore provides a superb singing voice. 50 minutes of heartwarming rock music. A current comparism would lead to the Perfect Storm debut album No Air maybe. When you are underway preferring mellow accessible prog stuff this is a definite must have.