STORMS OVER STILL WATER

In 2001 I attended a progrock festival in Holland, Mostly Autumn took my attention because of their pleasant blend of prog and folk. Especially the heavy David Gilmour- influenced guitarist blew me away! Since then this band has released a lot of material, gained a large progrock audience and even reached the television. This is their latest album, my CD version doesn't include a DVD.

1. Out of the Green Sky This operner contain a slow rhythm and a bombastic climate featuring duo-vocals (a bit theatrical female vocals) and great slide-guitar play.

2. Broken Glass A tight rhythm-section with a mid-tempo, male vocals and tasteful keyboards. To me it sounds a bit polished.

3. Ghost in Dreamland The atmosphere changes from mellow to bombastic featuring wonderful piano work and a good synthesizer solo. The duo-vocals do a great job here.

4. Heart Life First twanging acoustic guitar, flute and warm vocals, then halfway it turns into more bombastic delivering emotional female vocals and lush organ waves. The final part features a wonderful, very sensitive electric guitar solo.

5. The End of the World The climates change from dreamy with melancholical vocals and twanging acoustic guitar to bombastic (slow rhythm), this is very pleasant prog.

6. Black Rain A mid-tempo rhythm with duo-vocals and a fine electric guitar solo. Not very intreresting (understatement for a bit boring!).

7. Coming to... After some noisy sounds, this short piece delivers heavy guitar riffs.

8. Candle to the Sky One of the highlights on this album! First a dreamy climate with a slow rhtyhm and melancholical vocals, then a bombastic eruption with organ, followed by a cheerful atmosphere with The Beatles-like vocal harmonies. The end contains a dreamy climate with fragile play on the electric guitar and soaring keyboards, wonderful.

9. Carpe Diem This track features the distinctive sound of the Uillean pipes, along with tender piano, very moving, this folky side of Mostly Autumn pleases me! Halfway there is a splendid build-up, it becomes more and more bombastic, culminating in a mindblowing Floydian guitar solo.

10. Storms over Still Water In this song the climate is a bit melancholical with twanging acoustic guitar, orchestral keyboards, piano and warm vocals. Then a slow and more bombastic atmosphere, again culminating in a mindblowing Floydian guitar solo, GREAT!

11. Tomorrow

Another typical Mostly Autumn composition: a slow rhythm and a bombastic climate with propulsive drum beats and fiery electric guitar.

Despite some mediocre, polished mid-tempo songs, this album features two strong faces from Mostly Autumn: wonderful, very tasteful folky inspired tracks and compelling bombastic climates featuring a slow rhythm and some excellent guitar work in the vein of DAVID GILMOUR.

With this release Mostly Autumn keep walking further apart from that spacey prog-folk sound that first got me into them, like they did with "Passengers". This time the band decided on a short album (it's just under one hour, unlike the others) full of quick paced short heavy rockers, like the first six songs. There is some good material there, like "Broken Glass", "Heartlife" and "The End of the World". The seventh song is a boring instrumental that simply splits the album between the poppier first songs and the long tracks, more reminescent of "old" Mostly Autumn. And the whole situation changes. If you were wondering if the album, judging by the first half, was worth the money paid, you get your answer here. The last four tracks are among MA's best. A certain floydian influece is recaptured, and we get to hear Angie Goldthorpe at last, given that she seemed absent through the entire first half. One thing that comes out of this album is the fact that Bryan Josh can actually sing, for he apears to have worked on his vocals and now sings beutifully in a low range, controling his voice a lot batter and saving himself another embaressment. Heather, on the other hand, gives us more of her lovely voice, although on some songs she just seems to shout instead of singing. Overall, the album is heavier, darker, and with better production than former works, with the bonus that Bryan Josh is no longer singing badly. The album is actually quite good for Hard-Rock standarts, but since we're judging it as a Prog-Rock album, it is far from an amazing work. 3,5 out of 5.

I borrowed both this, and Passengers, from a friend a little while ago. I still have them. Now, I had heard that Passengers wasn't too popular with some fans, but I personally loved it! See my review for that album. I felt it started off great and just got better. However, this one I find, by comparison, a little disappointing. Once again, I feel the second half of the disc is stronger, but none of the material on here is as good, to my ears, as the songs on Passengers. 'Out Of The Green Sky' is not a very auspicious start; the guitar work is fine, and Bryan Josh sounds quite good, but poor Heather doesn't sound anywhere near up to her usual standard. I think they were trying to sound too heavy and hard rockish on this track. 'Broken Glass' is a tad better, it has a decent melody and sounds more like Mostly Autumn. Nevertheless, the track is not in any way outstanding. 'Ghost In Dreamland' suffers from the same problem, a decent song, but nothing mindblowing. 'Heart Life' by contrast, is rather better, with good vocals from Heather, and nice guitar work from Bryan. The band as a whole sound more into their stride on this track. One of the better songs. 'The End Of The World', and 'Black Rain' are both solid, the former in particular having good guitar and keyboard work, but again, they suffer from not standing out in any way. 'Coming To' is an instrumental, but this is very average fare indeed, and not in the same class as 'Distant Train' on Passengers. Now though, things change for the better, and the last four songs are the best on here. 'Candle To The Sky' is beautiful, a mini epic moving through some nice changes, with atmospheric guitar and keyboard work again. Nice vocals too. 'Carpe Diem' is another good 'un, another long ish effort with a strong melody from Heather, and vintage guitar from Bryan towards the end. The title track could be my favourite on here. Like the two previous tracks, it is a slower number, with strong melody and vocals. The final track, 'Tomorrow', is another instrumental, but a rather better one, and it finishes the album nicely. I have played this a few times, and find it better the more I play it. Nevertheless, it is not up to the standard of Passengers, in my eyes. I have heard that their first three albums are the best; if they are better than Passengers, they must be good! This one is still worth three stars however.

MA has been rather productive the recent years. A considerable amount of live albums (five) as well as DVD ones (five as well, if I am correct) between this album and their last studio work ("Passengers" released in 2003).

I have appreciated moderately MA so far. Their albums seemed a bit monotonous at times and definitely too long. Still, I admit that on each of their albums, some fabulous songs were featured (and therefore I have rated their fantastic compilation "Catch The Spirit" with five stars).

Their previous effort showed a bit of a change into their musical direction and it is confirmed with this album. Stronger rocking numbers than previously which is pretty much fine with me.

As we have been used to, the first compositionsof the album are really strong. In this case, you won't be brought into the Floydian mood like before; no : the first three songs are rather energetic, melodious and bloody good rocking songs, believe me. These songs are shorter than what we were used to with MA. Each being shorter than four minutes. But lenghty songs do not mean quality ones. In this case, holding the lenght to a very short standard, keeps the interest of the listener rather high.

The first folkish song is "Heart Of Life". A beautifully song lead by Heather (but, again, I am completely biased by her marvelous voice - but not only, I admit...). The second part of the song is rather hard and powerful though. A great mix of genre I must say. It is the first song of the album to feature a great guitar solo like we have been used to and which turned me into a MA fan to be honest.

The most Floydian song so far (not by the guitar but by the Gilmouresque type of vocals) is "The End Of Ther World". Another very pleasant song like MA has the secret about. Very strong chorus from Bryan and fabulous backing band. A great song again.

So far, this album is truely impressive. Not a single weak moment. And the next song "Black Rain" is absolutely on par : again the format is short (clocking as well at less than four minutes) but developping such a power ! Almost hard-rock but very pleasant (but you know that hard-rock is a genre I like, so...). A great song.

The short intrumental "Coming To..." starts as an Oriental gentle piece of music but turns out to be a wild one at half time. MA doesn't let us breathe. What a fabulous story so far !

Bryan takes the lead vocal on "Candle To The Sky". It starts as a folkish ballad (which is MA's trademark by the way). The chorus is pretty influenced by "The Dark Side Of The Moon". But I guess that there are less impressive inspiration, right ? It is the first long song of the album (over eight minutes). Fantastic rhythm after three minutes, really. We'll revert to a softer climate after five minutes and the song will finish with a spacey finale (would you believe, a bit like Floyd !) . Some three minutes to rest a bit, finally. Another very good MA moment.

The first truely prog / folk song is "Carpe Diem". A violin intro, and then... the sublime Heather. Only backed up with some very simple piano notes. A very intimist moment, really. And then... the sublime guitar break we are all waiting for. If you have read my previous MA reviews, you know how they sound like. These moments are really the ones I am expecting from MA; and frankly this studio album is the one I prefer. MA at his best.

In these Floydianless years, it is really a pleasure to discover such beautiful songs. And don't tell me that they sound too much like....bla, bla, bla... MA is great, full of emotion (and you know how much I am influenced by my emotions) and respectful. Hats off, my friends.

The title track is a bit weaker. Just a normal song I would say. Probably because all the other ones reached the masterpiece status. When Bryan takes up with the lead vocals, something happens again. I can't help. I am found of his warm voice which undoubfully reminds me ... you know whom I am talking about of course. The final guitar break reminds me of the same fabulous guy (hi Dave). So, here again, this song ends up as a superb composition.

Stop, please. I'm going to faint. Physically.

I have been listening to this album quite a lot and always have thought that it was their best studio work. Having listened attentively to each track for the purpose of this review, I cannot find any weakness in this album. Pure happiness (du pur bonheur).

If ever you would buy only one MA album, I STRONGLY recommend this one. I just cannot rate this album with less than five stars.

Here's my 300th review. No triumphant one on a great album, instead a quick one on an album I felt very disappointed with. I admit I haven't listened to this very many times (would it "grow on me"? I don't think so!), but it's easy to say WHY I don't like this album. In two words: too heavy. I just hate the evolution of rock music nowadays, when heavy has become mainstream and every second band, originally something else than heavy, turns out to sound like heavy, and throws away their personality in order to capture wider audiences. Here are few bands I have come across this phenomen lately: Arena, Pendragon, Coldplay, Overhead (from Finland),... it seems that especially Neo-Prog is generally becoming more heavy. (NB: I'm not talking of Doom Metal which I can't listen to a single second, but melodic and often "Gothic" heavy in which the shifting between frailty and loudness is important. I believe that rock in general is aiming more and more at this kind of edginess, because of the commercial dominance of heavy rock.)

That eased me. Where were we? MOSTLY AUTUMN They used to have a lot of folk incredients but on this album that's very hard to find. Not that this album would be loud'n'heavy all the way, no, but on almost every track calmness may suddenly turn into edgier sounds. Check out yourself on the MP3 streaming of 'The End of The World'. Bryan Josh uses his vocals in a Metallica style in the chorus. This is rather typical of this album. He also plays his electric guitars more aggressively than before. On the positive side, the female vocals (Heather Findlay) are even more used than on their lovely debut, and also Angela Gordon Goldthorpe with her flute is a full band member. So, without the heavier moments this could have been quite an enjoyable album, though not particularily graced with lots of originality what comes to the compositions (nothing very memorable actually). The flute could still be one factor that separates Mostly Autumn from numerous melodic heavy bands of today... I presume.

Of course, if you like edginess, you may like this one more than Mostly Autumn's earlier works which were notably based on the Pink Floyd/ David Gilmour style and added some folk in it.

It's hard not to give this album 4 stars when you hear those three longest songs that play one after another late on the record. "Candle To The Sky" , "Carpe Diem" and "Storms Over Still Waters" are all so good. Unfortunately the other 8 shorter tracks aren't even close to being on the same level. A shame really because this could have been as good as "The Last Bright Light".

"Out Of The Green Sky" sounds excellent when it kicks in. Bryan comes in vocally after a minute followed by Heather. A pretty good opener. "Broken Glass" opens with synths and pounding drums before it settles quickly as Bryan comes in vocally. It's fuller as contrasts continue. "Ghosts In Dreamland" opens with synths and drums as bass then piano joins in. Heather comes in vocally before a minute as it settles. It kicks back in as contrasts continue. Nice guitar 2 1/2 minutes in. "Heart Life" opens with acoustic guitar as flute joins in. Heather (vocals) follows as this song continues to settle and kick in throughout. Some good organ too. Check out the guitar 5 minutes in to end it. "The End Of The World" opens with acoustic guitar and Heather's vocals. Bryan both vocally and with guitar before 1 1/2 minutes as the sound gets fuller (including drums). Contrasts continue here as well.

"Black Rain" opens with some nice raw guitar as organ and drums join in. Heather comes in. Some killer guitar after 2 1/2 minutes. "Coming Too..." opens with percussion and other intricate sounds. Cool intro before it kicks in around a minute and gets even better. "Candle To The Sky" opens with acoustic guitar and reserved male vocals,drums join in. I'm reminded of FLOYD when the backing vocals come in. I like when the organ joins in as it gets fuller. It settles before 5 1/2 minutes with some Gilmour-like guitar. A gorgeous section right to the end. "Carpe Diem" opens with piano as Troy from IONA comes in with uillian pipes. Heather follows with piano only. It turns darker after 3 1/2 minutes then the guitar joins in and it's so impressive with Heather's vocal melodies helping out. Great tune. "Storms Over Still Waters" opens with intricate guitar as the wind blows. Synths come in then Heather before a minute. Bryan comes in vocally after 3 1/2 minutes as the sound changes. Some fantastic guitar follows. It settles after 7 minutes with some PORCUPINE TREE-like synths. "Tomorrow" is the closing instrumental. Drums and heavy guitar here before the synths and a full sound kicks in.

As I said earlier the way this album ends it seems silly to consider anything less than 4 stars, but overall I have to give 3.5 stars.

Symphonic soundscapes and dreamlike, haunting beauty over still water

Mostly Autumn are a prog folk band that I really adore due to the close relation to the symphonic sound of Pink Floyd and especially the beautiful soaring vocals of Heather Findlay. "Storms Over Still water" is one of their best albums.

It begins with a bang with Josh Bryan's riffing heavy guitar on 'Out of the Green Sky'. Findlay's vocals are more aggressive than usual, she really belts this out. Wonderful opener.

'Broken Glass' is catchy and melodic with a killer chorus and very strong drum beat from Andrew Jennings. The keyboard motif on this from Ian Jennings is awesome and one of the best things about the song.

'Ghost in Dreamland' features Findlay's haunting vocal treatment. The harmonies are beautiful when she sings with Bryan. It is a fast tempo once again with passages of slowed down verses. The loud chorus is excellent; "Until we find our way back home, a ghost in dreamland all alone, turn up the radio, spinning and spinning and spinning alone". It ends abruptly. There is no nonsense from the band on this album, straight in, deliver killer melodies and get out.

'Heart Life' is as quiet as the band get, similar to their classic 'Evergreen'. Findlay's dreamlike vocals are sensual and compelling. I could listen to her all day. The chorus is louder and infectious; "it's a heart life when day time lovers fought for lovers of the night, it's a heart life when night time dwellers fall for lovers of the light".

'The End of the World' is Findlay at her best, the high octave range is mesmirising. The acoustic picking is well executed, as the lyrics are sung; "and how he loves this mellow Sunday lunch, oh how he still inspires her teenage blush." Later Bryan sings the chorus like David Gilmour again. I like the tradeoff between them. This is one of the proggiest too with a strange time signature. A highlight of the album.

'Black Rain' is heavy prog with a grinding guitar riff, and very nice Hammond organ sound. Findlay is enticing; "Standing on the edge of a blue green volcano..." This is one of my favourite MA tracks. The heavy organ and guitar continue the riff throughout. There is an awesome lead guitar break to savour, Bryan really takes off on this with hammering and speed picking.

'Coming to...' is a strange atmospheric instrumental with echo effects and off kilter drumming style. A droning synthesizer and creepy piano add to the ethereal tone. At 1 minute in a heavy guitar riff crashes in keeping a driving rhythm. The keyboards sound symphonic on this and it ends abruptly.

'Candle to the Sky' sounds like Gilmour again, more so than usual, even reminiscent of the style of "Dark Side of the Moon". Bryan does a good job on vocals and the guitars are gentle and lulling. The huge chorus is a keyboard crunching pad with a nice little riff. The tempo quickens and takes some detours in the instrumental section which is dominated by organ but the flute by Angela Gordon Goldthorpe solo is great. The ambience at the end of the track is sweet to the ears.

'Carpe Diem' features Troy Donockley on ullian pipes and low whistle. It begins with wind howling noises and the ullian pipes, creating a melancholy lonely sound. Findlay's vocals are quiet and beautifully executed. The lyrics are interesting; "out in the twilight beneath the full moon, far from the snowfall lay tempest gloom, raging the ocean cuttle like steel, caught in the crossfire of mother nature's wheel". It is serene and calming and yet haunting. The lyrics are the feature of this; "Deafening silence fills the room, out of the darkness a candle gloom, reading a prophecy for all to hear, these days are a privilege they must be sealed." The guitars on this enhance the chilling piano chords. A very gloomy dark song but so well sung by Findlay, it's wonderous.

'Storms over Still Water' is another excellent track beginning with wind howls and a hypnotic acoustic guitar riff. The guitars violin as a keyboard pad sounds off. "Take my hand and put your arms around me... " Findlay cries out from the depths. The album's atmosphere has changed and there is a much darker ambient atmosphere. The lead guitar is uplifting though and absolutely brilliant. It finishes bookended with guitar swells and echoes. Excellent track.

'Tomorrow' begins with solo pounding drum rhythms, then a heavy guitar crashes in, the keyboards shimmer loudly over, the melody is similar to the previous track. This instrumental is like a reprise of this in fact. I could not ever discern that much of a difference, so this song is the finale, an extension of the other track, even including pieces of other tracks and melodies.

Overall this is one of Mostly Autumns best studio albums. I don't think there's a weak song on the album and some of these tracks are absolutely brilliant. I would recommend this to Pink Floyd fans and anyone who likes a heavy keyboard sound in their prog with lashings of lead guitar solos and beautiful female vocals. A great place to start to get into this band.

For the first time, excluding Lord of the Rings, a MA album doesn't start exactly with the last notes of the previous one. There's a remind to Passengers but it's slightly different.

As on Passengers the first track is quite heavy and doesn't seem to have been written thinking to Heather's voice, and as on Caught on a Fold che is able to make a good jib anyway. The difference is that she sings only on the chorus, the rest is Bryan's stuff. I like this song but it's different from the usual MA, including the sudden end.

Rock also on the second track. Again is Bryan who sings over a base of bass and drums. There have been a change in the lineup as Blackmore is no longer in the band, replaced by Andy Jennings who is possibly Iain's relative. Also Angela Goldthorpe got married so she has changed her surname to Gordon.

"Ghost In Dreamland" looks like something already listened. The bass line is the same of an instrumental from their early albums, I currently don't remember which one. The song is not bad and Heather is excellent as usual, but this is the third consecutive heavy track.

The first track which sounds 100% Mostly Autumn is "Heart Life" and is a very good one. Heather at her best with a very godd performance of the whole band. The acoustic guitar and the keyboards sound a bit like on "Mother Nature".

"The End Of The World" starts similar. The 12 strings guitar backing Heather is strangely similar to that of Rod Stewart's "Sailing". Of course not the vocals,even when Bryan takes over the role of lead singer, luckily on the chorus only. Nice song. The chorus is repeated maybe too many times in the coda. I think a guitar solo wouldn't have been bad.

Hard guitar again on "Black Rain". This is not the best kind of songs for Heather, but again she does her job excellently. It's similar to "The King's Return" but not so bad.

A bit of electronic for the about three minutes of "Coming To...". With some sitar and more distortion it could be Senmuth....well don't take me too seriously, even with distorted guitar this is everything but metal. The keyboard adds a symphonic touch, instead.

"Candle In The Sky" switches on something in my memory. I can't identify what exactly, but it's like I already knew it before buying the CD. Bryan's voice when on bass pitch sounds different and better than usual. One of the best album's songs. It turns deeply into Pink Floyd in the second half of the song.

A touch of Renaissance on "Carpe Diem" ("Catch the moment" in Latin). A Slow piano base for Heather. A sad theme which grows slowly strongly reminding of "Mother Nature" and "Shrinking Violet".

The title track starts Gilmourish with acoustic guitar on minor chords and again Heather. After one minute it's something different. A complex and captivating track with frequent changes of tonality and again very symphonic. Bryan takes over the vocal work at more or less half song then he places a good guitar solo.

"Tomorrow" starts with drums only in a quite hypnotic way then it gradually grows to rock. A good instrumental well placed as album's closer.

It's still a good album, but if you look for something really representative of Mostly Autumn it's too late. Check out the older stuff. This is good but non-essential.

Mostly Autumn seemed like a band that would be worth checking out after I read some of the reviews on PA. I listened to samples of their music on iTunes and YouTube, and my conclusion was that their folk music beginnings might not be quite up my alley but also their most recent work might be too pop oriented. "The Last Bright Light" was the album I really wanted but it was only available as an expensive import. I had to decide between "Passengers" and "Storms Over Still Water" and settled on the latter.

After the first few tracks, I felt I was listening to Pink Floyd meets Figgy Duff (a folk rock band from Newfoundland that was active in the 80's and 90's) with a mix of Kim Hill (a female Christian singer/songwriter whose style is non-aggressive rock with a tinge of country). Heather Findlay's vocals give the band their Kim Hill rock sound, Bryan Josh provides the David Gilmour/Pink Floyd sound, and the folk beginnings which are still apparent here to a degree add the Figgy Duff sound. It's an interesting concoction to be sure.

The first half of the album is comprised of shorter songs that are more mainstream oriented. There's some good rock guitar that borders on hard rock at times, some nice synthesizer and piano as on "Ghost in Dreamland", and I like the lyrics to "The End of the World", which have Heather describing an elderly couple's simple and sweet relationship and Josh singing about what I think is the moon smashing into southern England and the wave of destruction reaching the couple. I would, however, like to point out that if the moon did indeed collide with the earth, the pull of gravity would upset the crust of the earth and engulf the focal area in magma before the lunar face ever kissed the earth. But interesting song nonetheless.

"Coming To" is a short instrumental that takes us into the second half of the album that features three longer songs and it seems we are out of the mainstream and into prog land. "Candle in the Sky" has a very strong Pink Floyd sound at first and half the song is a slow guitar solo in the flavour of Mr. Gilmour. "Carpe Diem" begins with some beautiful piano and ullian pipes and low whistle. The first half is really enjoyable but the song then spends the second half playing out a slow-paced musical theme on piano, pipes, and Heather's vocalese that I personally feel drags on for a little too long.

My favourite of the longer songs is the title track. The song is also in two parts, the first part sung by Heather and is acoustic and moody, very pretty. The second part has Josh take over and though still slow and beautiful, it takes on a bit more of a rock edge, once again reminding me of post-Waters Pink Floyd. For my money, this is the song where the band really nailed it and it's the most played track off the album in my earbuds.

"Tomorrow" is a nice closing instrumental with a simple but powerful melody. It repeats until it fades out.

This album has it's moments and at times I really can enjoy listening to some of the songs. But I felt it was not as progressive as I had imagined and more commercial rock, especially in the first half. I was looking forward to a bit more of a folk feel to it as I imagine "The Last Bright Light" is like. I'd like to get at least one more album by Mostly Autumn but the ones that are easy to procure are even more pop-ish and the older albums are all rare, out-of- print, and expensive. There is of course the "Pass the Clock" compendium of MA's career but I worry about buying a 3-CD set where I might like only one CD's worth of songs.

"Storms" is a good album that will be a treasure for some. I think it's mostly just OK.

Review Nº 588

"Storms Over Still Water" is the sixth studio album of Mostly Autumn and was released in 2005. It follows the same path of their previous album "Passengers" but with a production problem, the song order. It seems the album is split in two. The first half of the album contains mainly pop rock tunes, while the second half contains much more proggy tunes.

It was the first album with their new drummer Andrew Jennings who substituted Jonathan Blackmore. It was also the last album to feature their former keyboardist Iain Jennings, which was substituted by Chris Johnson on their next seventh studio album "Heart Full Of Sky". So, the line up on the album is Bryan Josh (lead vocals, lead, rhythm, electric and acoustic guitars), Heather Findlay (lead and backing vocals and percussion), Iain Jennings (backing vocals and keyboards), Liam Davison (slide electric guitars), Angela Goldthorpe (backing vocals, flute and recorders), Andy Smith (bass guitars) and Andrew Jennings (drums). The album had also the participation of Troy Donockley (low whistles and Uilleann pipes), Chris Johnson (backing vocals), and Mark Goron and Chris Walkden (backing vocals), as guest artists.

"Storms Over Still Water" has eleven tracks. The first track "Out Of The Green Sky" written by Josh and Findlay opens the album quite heavily with a slow rhythm and a heavy guitar riff with a good slide guitar play. Findlay's vocals are more aggressive than usual. This is a great opener to the album. The second track "Broken Glass" written by Josh and Jennings is a good and interesting song, very catchy and melodic. It's a song with a good chorus and a very strong drum beat. The keyboards are the prominent part on the song and are probably the best thing on it. The third track "Ghost In Dreamland" written by Josh and Jennings is a good and beautiful song very bombastic and with a wonderful keyboard work. The harmony of the song is absolutely perfect when Findlay sings with Josh. It's a song with a pop tune, but that sounds beautifully to my ears. The fourth track "Heart Life" written by Josh and Findlay is the first song on the album with a folk tune. It's a very beautiful ballad where Findlay's vocal performance sounds warm and sensual, showing her great vocal skills. This is the best track on the album so far. The fifth track "The End Of The World" written by Josh, Findlay and Jennings is a very interesting song with some good lyrics and nice music. It seems to me a song that is inspired by Genesis in Peter Gabriel's era and that suddenly and curiously changes to an unexpected Pink Floyd style in Roger Waters' era. The sixth track "Black Rain" written by Josh and Findlay is a heavy rock song that reminds me Deep Purple or even Uriah Heep. It's a song with a good heavy guitar riff and a nice heavy keyboard sound. This is a very powerful hard rock song very pleasant to hear, really. The seventh track "Coming To?" written by Jennings is a magnificent instrumental track that marks a change in the musical direction of the album to most progressive songs. It's a song with a very special wild musical ambience and with heavy guitar riffs and a remarkable good keyboard performance. The eighth track "Candle To The Sky" written by Josh is the best track on the album, until now, and represents the first epic on it. It has been described many times as "The Dark Side Of The Moon" of Mostly Autumn. It's easy to see why. The similarities are so obvious that just listen to both to can see why. The ninth track "Carpe Diem" written by Findlay and Jennings is the second epic on the album and is another excellent track. Finally, we can hear Troy Donockley and his Uilleann pipes and low whistles, giving to the song some very beautiful Celtic feel, so common to hear on Mostly Autumn's music. The tenth track is the title track "Storms Over Still Water" and was written by Josh. This is another great song where Josh and Findlay shine once more. It represents the third epic track on the album, and with the two previous songs "Candle To The Sky" and "Carpe Diem" represent the three highlights of the album. These are the kind of songs we expected to hear on a Mostly Autumn's album. The eleventh track "Tomorrow" written by Josh is the second instrumental track on the album and represents a typical Mostly Autumn's composition. This is a bombastic song with a great performance. It seems to me a reprise of the previous track that closes the album nicely.

Conclusion: As I wrote above, with "Storms Over Still Water" Mostly Autumn follows the same pattern they followed on their previous studio album "Passengers", moving away from their beginning prog-folk sound to a more symphonic sound. Still, despite "Storms Over Still Water" be similar to "Passengers", is less balanced than "Passengers" is. Despite "Storms Over Still Water" has some of the best material ever released by the band, such as, "Candle To The Sky", "Carpe Diem" and "Storms Over Still Water", it's at the same time an unbalanced album with a great second part and a rather worst first part, in general. However, "Storms Over Still Water" has, probably, some better songs than "Passengers" has. So, I'm going to rate it with the same 4 stars. But, if you want to know the band for the first time I recommend start with their older works, "For All We Shared", "The Spirit Of Autumn Past" and "The Last Bright Light".

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)