SEAS OF CHANGE

This 42 minutes epic song or album started as a 7-minute piece that evolved into an extended piece because of the flow of inspiration that hit the musicians. The song starts where the band has left with "Quiet Storms"; some melancholic passage with piano, memorable choral note, and samples taken from film dialogue of the Great War. Then a Gilmour style guitar part kicks in from Lee Abraham back with the band. It is followed by some heavier parts that will become a recurrent themes throughout the whole thing. The band's music has never used so much spacey electronic effects and the keyboard never had so much space because Dean Baker is the one who has written the music and the orchestral arrangements. So the atmosphere of the music is different from previous albums except "Quiet Storms". There is some nice vocals work from Stuart and some welcome flute from Sarah Bolter. This is a modern prog album that is mixing the new and the old, the hard and the soft in a sweeping panorama of sound that reminds me at times that I was in the heart of the atmosphere of a movie. Naturally, this long piece is to listen as a whole and you will only want to hear more after the short 40 minutes. We have 12 minutes more of that as bonus tracks but those songs are a continuation of the whole story keeping the same mood of the whole epic.

One long 42+ minute song--and what a song! This is a Neo Prog masterpiece in the IQ/Pendragon vein! But this is better. Way better, this is the best Neo Prog album I've heard since EDISON'S CHILDREN's The Final Breath Before November.

"Seas of Change" (42:43) The piece opens with ambient synth layers and treated flute setting up a spacey, latent energy atmosphere over which a "radio" voice speaks a few lines at a time. At 1:35 solo grand piano breaks the introductory spell, setting a kind of classical/symphonic scene, over which a cathedral-filling solo female voice sings some wordless vocalise. Beautiful, like the Alexandre Desplat pieces used in the last Harry Potter films. (10/10) At the three minute mark we shift into a kind of theatric, mediæval section with pompous male vocal announcing the upcoming play from the "future." This is followed by harpsichord and harp and, then, piano sounds with Gregorian voice--all keyboard generated. Radio voice "play-by-play" seems to be covering the rising tension and decay of national government. At 6:23 Galahad lead singer Stu Nicholson enters for the first time to start singing his bard-like version of the eery tidings happening. "Bring it on," he says before wailing solo guitar seems to keen our plight. At 8:15 comes the first breakout of true rock fullness--a nice section with some excellent deep bass notes and matching organ and guitar chord progressions in an odd time signature. Great instrumental section! (10/10) At the ten minute mark there is another shift--into a slow, panning percussive synth bouncing around the background while winds and synths take turns filling the soundscape with incidentals and arpeggios. Drums introduce another section at 11:30 as "La-la-la-las" set up the next vocal section of the story. Great support for Stu's vocal. The part of this section is simple as the section follows the ABACAB structure of a pop song. (9/10) At 15:05 there is another break in which a radio play-by-play catches us up to speed. The music then amps back up into the full force of the previous section before suddenly breaking into a new section with acoustic guitar strumming providing the foundational fabric for Stu's next section--the "Smoke" section. Sounds quite a bit like a Peter Jones vocal on Colin Tench's albums: theatric. Nice drums as the music thickens with volume and intensity behind Nicholson's vocal. (8/10) At 18:10 we switch back to a familiar heavier riff, with low end dominating over the organ and excellent cymbal play. Another slight shift at 18:57 into an angrier section about consensus (or the lack thereof). (9/10) At 20:05 we again break for a staticky radio update. Great sequenced synth background support for Stu's higher octave vocal. Staccato choral vocals sing the next section over a hard-driving, heavier section. Another radio update is followed by an excellent synth solo over the heavy, choral section. (9.5/10) At the 24 minute mark there is a break for a long synth and organ interlude before the next radio update occurs. Nice. (5/5) Then, at 25:20, begins the intro to the "Dust" section with its strumming acoustic guitar and return of the soprano female vocalise. By 25:45 we are into the full sound of the song with its catchy throbbing beat and swirling soloing synth. Stu's vocal here is kind of laid back as he sings about the vengeance the planet is serving to the smug liars running our race into climate catastrophe. The section that begins at the 28 minute mark, the second part of "Dust," is the album's only truly weak link (both lyrically and in its IQ familiarity), though the lead guitar work is wonderful. (8/10) At 34:40 another "radio" interlude pre-empts another shift in the song thread, this one singing about "danger," "trust," and "faces." (8.5/10) At 39:18 a cymbal crashes denotes the shift into the final slowed-down, piano-based section. Ambience and atmosphere seem burgeoning with potential energy--as if ready to burst forth in another foray into hard-drive. But then Stu enters and calms and quells any thoughts of rebellion with his smooth voice and words. The true finisher is the female singer performing the vocalise to the end. (9.5/10)

A five stars; a masterpiece of Neo Prog music!

So, last year I went back to the UK for the first time in five years, and arranged to stay with Stu and his wonderful wife Lin for a night. It was something of a shock to discover that he had been admitted into hospital, which of course warranted a trip over to Poole, so instead of sitting in his living room imbibing on the odd Hobgoblin or three we instead made do with a coffee at his bedside (and I drank his Hobgoblin later that night). It was while we were visiting that he told me that Roy had left the band again, this time presumably for good. I can remember back when he told me that Roy had left previously, but after some time he had been coaxed back into the band he founded, but this was more permanent and they had already found a replacement. Knowing that Karl Groom (Threshold) had assisted on the last release, for a minute I wondered if it might be him but couldn't work out how he could commit the time, but I think I was even more surprised when Stu told me that it was multi-instrumentalist and solo artist Lee Abraham. But, it did make sense as Lee had already been a full member of the band, as bassist, but what would this mean to the overall sound? Also, this was going to be the first electric release featuring Tim Ashton on bass, whose last "proper" album was 'Nothing is Written' before he left the band to travel to Japan.

Stu sent me some edits to whet my appetite (which are "bonus" songs on the CD), telling me that the new album was going to be a single song clocking in at more than 40 minutes. Over the years Galahad have moved from neo-prog to prog metal, have dallied with both acoustic and dance, even brought some trance into what they have been doing, so what was the new album going to sound like, bearing in mind that three of the five last recorded together in 1991?

Just one guest has been brought in, Sarah Quilter, who has played with the band on and off since the Galahad Acoustic Quintet album, again adding flute, clarinet and soprano sax. Her touches are delicate and richly enjoyed, but this is really about the five guys this time around, who sat down and ripped up the Galahad playbook and have produced something that no-one really expected, namely a back to the roots neo-prog album which is a concept, a view on the political shenanigans surrounding Brexit, and musically one of the most diverse they have ever released. This latter is in no small part to Lee, who is approaching the guitar parts with a fresh mind, playing acoustic or electric as the need arises, soloing when he needs to but often letting everyone else take centre stage and staying more in the background than some of their more metallic releases. Dean is enjoying himself by using a larger variety of sounds than previously, Tim sounds like he has never been away, while the use of Karl as a producer has yet again captured just how important Spencer is to the overall sound of the band, and just how much variety he offers in terms of technique. Then there is Stuart, who still hits the notes with ease, and sounds as if he is having an absolute blast.

How does this fit within their canon? Well, in many ways it is the logical album to follow 'Sleepers': it certainly doesn't sound as if the band have been releasing music for the last 20 years, as if they had been able to produce the former without all the issues they suffered at the time, then this would have been a logical follow-up. Here we have a line-up of some guys who were there in the (relatively) early days, one who has been there before and has returned, and Dean who is by far the longest-serving keyboard player and who has seen the band through many musical changes. He provided the music and arrangements, Stu provided the lyrics and vocals, and all five of them have provided the most complete and wonderful album of their career to date.

That it is a masterpiece is not in doubt, that it will be viewed as album of the year by many is also a shoe-in, while the understanding that in many ways this is the most important release of their career should be taken as read. Let's hope that they capitalise on the success this is already garnering, and gain the plaudits this so richly deserves.

Given that I was previously a collaborator on the neo-prog team on Prog Archives, it will probably come as a wee bit of a surprise to those who have read my reviews and contributions here that I was never much of a Galahad fan. They were, to me, an okayish sort of act, one of many who came out of those heady days in the 1980's second wave of prog which spawned favourites such as Marillion, IQ, Pendragon & etc.

I thought that the first two albums were rather weak, derivative, and not worthy of further attention, and I lost track of them. That is until 2007, when I gave Empires Never Last a couple of spins, and did not really enjoy what I heard. I basically thought; give up; you don't like them; you can't like everyone.

That is until I read a couple of reviews from alumni of this site for the latest opus, the fact that Lee Abraham, one of my favourite solo artists of recent years, had returned to the fold, and the knowledge that, as a rather sad political obsessive, the LP passed a commentary on the state of modern British politics, which, whether you voted leave or remain, can only be described as being in a shocking mess. Indeed, I have never known anything like it in a 35 year public service career.

So, on all of these levels, this album seemed made for me, and it does not disappoint.

One 42 minute epic, made up of twelve mini pieces merged into one monster of a track. It is rollocking. It races along, and never once loses the attention of the listener. It is a superb collective piece, and includes some rather delicate and lovely pieces by a guest musician I had not heard of previously, one Sarah Bolter on wind instruments.

It would be impossible, and really not give the piece any real justice, to dissect the component parts in a review. Suffice to say that the lyrics perfectly encapsulate the mess we are in, without being overly preachy. The musicianship is never anything less than tight, and mention should go to the marvellous orchestration implemented by Dean Baker, whose at times malevolent keys are to the fore in much of what you hear.

It is nice to be proven wrong, especially where artists and music are concerned. This whole album, which has reworked parts of the suite as two bonus tracks, is a joy to listen to, and will absolutely make me buy and sit down and listen to what I have been missing all of these years.

An excellent album, and a clear highlight of 2018.

Since I fell in love with Galahad's 'Empires Never Last' album of 2007 I've been going through their discography. Their latest record 'Seas of Change' was also released on vinyl, and I was really willing to give this album a fair chance. I must however admit I find this album very hard to appreciate.

Galahad is known for its neo-progressive style with a distinct electronic sounds (sometimes almost trance-genre like) and its gentle metal guitars. On this album guitarist Roy Keyworth is replaced by Lee Abraham, which has lead to a way less guitar-driven rocksound.

The symphonic opening parts with added political speech fragments (for instance by G W Bush) never seem to end. When the guitars finally kick in, they sound mandatory and without the usual urgency. Galahad has always displayed a lack of adult understanding of world politics in its lyrics, but here the naive pretentiousness really becomes a terrible burden on the music. After the ten minute intro the band just partly succeeds to pick up its pace its known for. The lack of real catchy and interesting ideas becomes immanent and the orchestrations by keyboardist Dean Baker and additional wind-instruments by Sarah Bolter can't save the day. At its core, good progressive rock needs solid interesting ideas.

On 'Battle Scars' and 'Beyond The Realms Of Euphoria' the band got away with its rather simplistic brand of progressive rock because it could still rely on its solid song-writing ideas and thriving heavy guitars. On this album there's simply too little left to reward the band with even a three star rating, in my opinion.