INNER VOYAGES BETWEEN OUR SHADOWS

I only know this Brasilian four piece band from their tribute to the amazing 3-CD The Odeyssey Project, I wrote about them: "Aether from Brasil is the warm and pleasant final act on this 3-CD. They sound traditional with strong echoes from the neo-progressive movement with music that ranges from swinging with fluent electric guitar to dreamy with soaring keybards and mid-tempo with exciting synthesizer flights. The end is beautiful with sensitive acoustic guitar."

Well, after listening to this second album by Aether I can almost repeat the abovementioned musical analysis! The focus is on the wonderful, very flowing and warm guitar work, strongly evoking Steve Rothery and Mike Holmes (especailly the guitar sound on Dans Le Parc Du Chateau Noir), the album is layered with often compelling soli. The keyboards are tastefully colouring the music (strings, church-organ sound and some fine soli on synthesizer). It's a pity that the vocals are not in their native language because the music would have sound more emotional, now the vocals are a bit flat and you can hear the accent easily. And at some moments the atmosphere in the compositions is a bit similar, it's no coincidence that, in my opinion, the most captivating and alternating track is the cover A Night On Bald Mountain (Mussorgsky) delivering great bombastic eruptions and many strong breaks and accellarations. Nonetheless, this is a beautiful neo-prog inspired album that will please the fans of early Marillion and IQ and bands like Clepsydra.

I remember I wrote a review on their debut album, which was rather weak and amateur effort. With this one AETHER got much better; it’s like another band! Imagine CAMEL-influenced Prog with long epics, fusion-leaned instrumentals, fiery guitar/keys interplays and some obvious PINK FLOYD/ALAN PARSONS hints, and you’ll get the idea how AETHER sounds like. They are still a bit amateurish, sometimes they lack tenacity and inner power, but I’m pretty sure they know how to achieve it. Being far from masterpiece, nevertheless this is a solid release in its own nature, and I can recommend it to all CAMEL/FLOYD lovers (well, don’t expect THAT much though ;) ).

Very nice release from this brazilian symphonic band Aether. In their second release they prove they learned a lot and the overall feeling is very good. There are some great guitar work that reminds od Camel and Pink Floyd, while the keyboards and rhythm section has a more jazz rock feel on most of the songs. The production is quite good and the artwork is beautiful. I feel the songwriting department needs a little boldness and more inventiveness. Still the music is very pleasant and interesting. The only real downside on this album are the vocals: they are ok but nothing more, the band would gain a lot if they had a real singer with the same vocal potential as the instrumentists. Unfortuynatly this is something rather common in a lot of bands that have a very strong instrumental work (should they get rid of all lyrics and become a instrumental only essemble? Certainly they have the chops to do so, if they wish so).

Inner Voyages Between Our Shadows is a good album and Aether is a promising group. I´m looking forward to hear their next work. If you´re into 70´s symphonic rock with some strong Camel and Floyd influences, you should give it a try. 3 stars.