THE ANGELS TEAR

It is sadly not an easy task to find the albums by Aragon, and indeed their previous, fifth, album, Mr. Angel, still eludes me. This sixth, and to date latest, release of the band took some effort to track down, but it was well worth that effort. After having reviewed the whole discography of Aragon (minus Mr. Angel), I feel that The Angel's Tear is the album that best brings together the respective strengths of all their previous releases while at the same time avoiding most of their flaws and also at the same time introducing something brand new into the band's sound. All this helps them to sound more confident and also more original than they did on their early releases. The vocals of Les Dougan have never sounded as passionate and powerful as they do here and the same must be said of the guitars of John Poloyannis that get a more prominent place in the sound than ever in the past. The lyrics are thoughtful and often existential in nature.

The "mechanical" rhythm section of songs like the opening track, Growing Up In Cuckoo Land, and the midi-like keyboards of the short Discovery might trouble some people, but both tracks grew on me significantly after repeated listens. Indeed, all of the eight songs featured on The Angel's Tear are very strong. Favourite tracks for me include the nine minute In The Name Of God and the almost folky album closer The Silent Field with its Celtic-sounding drums. The album's longest track is the 13 minute title track while the shortest track, the aforementioned Discovery, is just under two minutes. The latter does indeed end rather abruptly and might perhaps have been extended somewhat. Another very short track is the weirdly titled Copper Bob And The Pirates At The Gates Of Dawn. This is actually quite weird musically too and features some notably theatrical "pirate" vocals and an almost Metal-like beat!

There is a nice flow and a good balance throughout the album between acoustic and electrically based songs and between upbeat passages and more serene ones. This makes for a very appealing variation that keeps the album interesting from start to finish and invites recurrent listens. Thankfully, Aragon have also avoided the common pitfall to put too much music on the same album just because the space available on a compact disc allows for it. A running time of just over 40 minutes is often optimal.

If you want to check out Aragon, The Angel's Tear is a great place to start. Let us hope that the band will return with another album in a not too far distant future and that they will also tour and perhaps record a live album/video that brings together songs from throughout their whole career.

Excellent addition!