THE SONGS & TALES OF AIROEA BOOK 3: MAGICAL CHRONICLE (ASCENSION)

The Chronicles of Father Robin return with the conclusion of their Airoea trilogy. Book I covered the land of Airoea, and Book II its waterways. You can read about my thoughts on those, as well as some notes on this band's background, in my original reviews. Book III, now, is exploring the skies of Airoea.

With the Airoea trilogy now concluded, I've included my thoughts on the project as a whole at the end of this review.

Book III begins with "Magic Chronicle". Gentle guitar and flute provide a warm backing for the opening verse, but it doesn't take long for momentum to start building. The rhythm guitar is charmingly ragged, and the lead has a refreshing, jazzy nature. TCOFR channel Yes clearly in this opening song, but it's not a rip-off. There's a synthesis of past influences into something original. Much as Book II fostered a vaguely aquatic feel throughout its runtime, this song has a fittingly light and buoyant aura. Even during more urgent passages, this song stays aloft.

"Skyslumber" slowly fades in, eventually emerging into a dreamy, floating verse. The guitars are again light and jazzy, and all the instrumental elements dance around each other delicately. It's a pleasant cut that builds up some good intensity by its end, but both its intro and its ending drag on too long.

This gentle mood continues with "Cloudship". The band's Yes-iness is a bit distracting here, however. In particular, this piece sounds a lot like certain passages on Tales from Topographic Oceans. The bit of narration in the middle also crosses the line from fanciful to corny. This is not the band's most compelling song.

"Empires of the Sun" does its best to make up for the underwhelming end to side one. It's immediately peppy and impactful, with a fun, muscular guitar riff. The blending of folk and harder-rocking elements is a rousing success on this song.

The last proper song in the Airoea trilogy is "Lost in the Palace Gardens". Mandolin and acoustic guitar give this song some slight Celtic or bluegrass flavors. (And bluegrass does descend, at least in part, from Celtic music, so that makes sense.) The chorus is strong and catchy, and the song eventually develops a smooth, rolling pulse. The drama is clear in the singer's tone, but the instrumentation is relatively restrained. The song winds down to a rather mellow conclusion, and this is followed by the minute long track "Epilogue", a collection of wind and water sounds.

Book III was the shortest album of the trilogy, and this was a pretty short review. This album felt like it lacked development, and a lot of the songs come off as samey. Nothing on this record is bad, mind you, but a lot of it just kinda floats along and doesn't really make much of an impact.

With all of Airoea in the rearview mirror now, I can take a look at the trilogy as a whole. Across the span of these three connected records, each successive installment grew shorter and gentler. Shorter is not necessarily a bad thing, but having each album be softer is simply not good structuring. Having a big, impactful, flashy opening, followed by a slow-burn part two, and a folky conclusion strikes me as a puzzling way to plot out the drama. A movie with a comparable structure would not make for the most entertaining watch.

This isn't to say it couldn't have ended on a calm note. There'd be absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problem is ending it on a 34-minute calm note, with only a couple flashes of anything else along the way.

In retrospect, Book I is my favorite of the bunch, and Book II has grown on me a bit. I'm writing this review about a month before Book III is officially released, so we'll see if my feelings change in the interim. (Edit 2/25/24: Nope, they didn't.) As it stands, this is probably the most disappointing of the bunch. Taken in isolation, Book III is decent; but in the context of a three-part, two-hour conceptual piece, it's a let-down. I respect this band for putting out such a big record of mostly-solid music, and I commend them for following through on a long-dormant dream. In the end, though, it is plagued by pacing issues throughout. The music, while enjoyable at points, is not particularly original. The Chronicles of Father Robin are an unnecessary project. The dozen or so people who are in every Norwegian prog band do much better work elsewhere.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/02/26/album-review-the-chronicles-of-father-robin-the-songs-tales-of-airoea-book-iii-airoea-overview/

THE CHRONICLES OF FATHER ROBIN is a modern day supergroup that has taken on the mission of resurrecting material of a band named Fangorn that existed in the early 1990s but never existed long enough to release any material. Bringing the material up to date and infusing it with new life, this band that consists of members from Wobbler, That Samuel Jackson Five, Tusmørke and Jordsjø has released three individual albums in the last couple years to recount a fantasy journey of an intrepid should named Father Robin in a three part journey with each album focusing on a different aspect of the storyline.

"Books 1 & 2" emerged in 2023 with great fanfare as the band nurtured all the classic retro sounds of the 70s with a strong focus on Yes, Gentle Giant and the folkier side of prog with lots of flute and lush acoustic guitar. THE SONGS & TALES OF AIROEA - BOOK 3 follows the first two chapters in early 2024 and concludes the mega project laid down by this army of seasoned prog musicians. While "Book 1" focused on the land, "Bood 2" covered the water worlds of AIOREA. BOOK 3 tackles the more ethereal and air sign qualities and is subtitled "Ascension." This third chapter like the other two differ slightly in stylistic approach while all being anchored in the same symphonic prog meets folk in the classic golden age prog approach.

BOOK 3 begins with the opening "Magical Chronicle" which is the most Gentle Giant inspired track of the band's three album run. It's an odd mix of classic Gentle Giant eclecticism married with the symphonic prog touches of Wobbler's current Yes-inspired take on symphonic prog. Perhaps the most energetic track since the band's debut, it is also the most prog oriented with the most time signature workouts. A veritable tribute to the past unfortunately comes off as too close to the source as do many of the tracks after the promising uniqueness of ""Book 1." The album continues only in a much lusher and psychedelic tone. The following "Skyslumber" generates a dreamy "floating" feel with pacifying acoustic guitars and Andreas Prestmo's most subdued vocal style. Once again his contributions make the project sound more like Wobbler than any of the other retrospective bands that the members are involved with.

With "Cloudship" the band channels its most placid reception of classic Yes with a clumsy ballad that sounds more like Jon Anderson solo material than Yes proper. At this point the band has clearly lost any sense of originality that allowed the debut album to stand on its own. While "Book 2" was a step down, BOOK 3 seems more like a tribute band playing homage to the lesser known Yes and Gentle Giant songs only set to a folkier atmosphere. This is only the third track and it already feels like an album's worth of recycled material. Ugh. "Empress of the Sun" luckily picks up the pace significantly with a rocking guitar groove and accompanying keyboard heft. This is the kind of sound that gets comparisons with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizzard however the vocals are still in the Yes camp although on this particular track they sound different from any other track on the three albums. The keyboards then start to emulate The Doors demonstrating that this band is mostly about copying rather than innovating. A decent track that could've been much better with a healthy infusion of creative fortitude.

Continuing the album's lack of cohesion and flailing around, "Lost In The Palace Gardens" jumps back into a mandolin infused folk. It's a rather generic sounding track and unfortunately at this point the title of the track describes the band's inability to deliver a three album concept. This particular track is insipidly flat and pretty much drops the ball in any attempt to make this final album feel like anything more than a final album of leftovers. In fact the album is a completely botched attempt of wrapping up what's supposed to be a three part series that presumably should get better with every release. What happened was a very competent debut album that showcased influences but stood as its own as original found a precipitous drop in quality on "Book 2" and although that album was inferior, it least it was listenable. This one on the other hand is a complete waste of time with one uninspired B-side track after another and not a lick of originality. What a huge disappointment this 3-part journey has been. One album should've been enough and the band would've been better to wait until they had enough quality material to release the second.

My first impressions of "Book III" were that Andreas is sounding more like Jon Anderson than he did on the first two books and that the instrumental music of this record follows more in line with "Book I" but pales somewhat in comparison. I am very happy to own "Book I" and it's in my top 60 "best of" Symphonic list. Now this appreciation came after I reviewed it after deciding I needed to go back with fresh ears. I had this so overhyped in my own mind that I was quite hard on it initially. So glad I took it for a couple of more spins. "Book II" is another story(haha) this one is about water, but man It's by far my least favourite.

"Book III" connects to the air, the sky, with titles like "Skyslumber", "Cloudship" and "Empress Of The Sun". There's a reduced role for Lars Fredrik Froislie as he's not listed as a guest this time. My favourite track is "Empress Of The Sun" an under 5 minute beauty. Upbeat is the word with energetic vocals. It will settle back some but this is the most powerful track on here. Organ as well makes an appearance.

"Cloudship" I have mixed feelings about because it's quite YES sounding but it's also a beautiful symphonic piece. Some spoken words and some percussion like we're travelling although this is a cloudship. The closer "Lost In The Palace Gardens" is the longest at 8 minutes but my least favourite. It's still good I just have trouble getting into it. Not so with those first two tracks "Magical Chronicle" and "Skyslumber" both are excellent but a notch below the music on "Book I".

This is a 4 star album for me but just barely, Too good though to drop it to 3 stars in my opinion but a low 4 stars.