THRENODY FOR A DEAD QUEEN

Back for their sixth studio album release since 2010, Comedy Of Errors' stalwart lineup produces another impeccably engineered collection of smooth prog songs. I would think this album would only serve to increase the quintet's fan base.

1. "Summer Lies Beyond" (15:27) checks all the requisites for a solid if mellow NeoProg classic. I like its spaciousness and ALAN PARSONS PROJECT I Robot-era sound, but dislike some of the engineering choices that leave it feeling a bit stark and remote. Still, the final five minutes and finish may make up for any sonic deficiencies. (27/30)

2. "The Seventh Seal" (14:10) I do not like the effects used on Joe Cairney's voice. Though his Geddy Lee vocal similarities are here matched by the song's RUSH-like musical sound palette, there is also a STYX/ALAN PARSONS PROJECT syrupyness to it as well--especially the longer the song goes on. Actually, this could very well have been a cutting floor outtake from one of the BUGGLES or ART IN AMERICA albums. (26/30)

3. "We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On (3:02) a pleasant, dreamy, atmospheric instrumental that suffers from some of the same engineering choices I've already noted. (It sounds like a 1980s New Age piece.) (4.375/5)

4. "Jane (Came Out of the Blue)" (4:00) Joe's voice is a little pitchy over this rather simplistic, pop-oriented construct. This is simply not up to par with modern prog song standards--more like a demo for an OZARK MOUNTAIN DAREDEVILS piece. (8/10)

5. "Through the Veil" (3:33) a fairly obvious attempt at a replication of STEVEN WILSON's "Perfect Life" only left as a one-dimensional instrumental. The violin isn't even a violin! It's a sound generated from a cheap computer keyboard! (4.125/5)

6. "Threnody for a Dead Queen" (12:28) a nicely hypnotic three-minute electronic intro that reminds me a lot of something TANGERINE DREAM or TORTOISE might have done for a movie soundtrack is augmented in the fourth minute by bass and drums, propelling the main theme forward though causing no shift in direction or pacing, but then everybody seems to fade into the ether leaving only a weave of keyboard generated (sequenced?) tuned percussives mixed with space atmospherics. What strikes me as odd is that a threnody is defined as a "wailing ode, song, hymn, or poem of mourning composed and performed as a memorial to a dead person" and yet nothing in this song feels sad or funereal, and there aren't even any voices, lyrics, or singing until the tenth minute! The vocal point that joins the party in the tenth minute feels totally as if it came out of one of JON ANDERSON's spiritually-expressive solo albums. While I like the music--and song--I always find myself a bit confused as I try to match the music with the title. (22/25)

7. "And Our Little Life Is Rounded with a Sleep" (3:09) another instrumental filler. At least this one has multiple motifs worked into its three minutes--and the sound feels cleaner, better engineered. (8.6667/10)

8. "Funeral Dance" (3:09) an oddly ironic electronic attempt at an ancient/mediæval sound. It sounds okay but would never fly at a Renaissance Faire. Maybe it would work at an Emerson, Lake and Palmer tribute band competition. And, to knock it all off, this seems to have come from a performance before a live audience! Go figure! (8.25/10)

Total Time 58:58

I've not felt as engaged and attached to any previous Comedy Of Errors release as I have with this one, and yet the engineering and production choices as well as the repeated use of half-baked instrumental fillers between the epics leaves me with a sour taste. It's similar to my reaction to Andrew Marshall's WILLOWGLASS releases: I love the sounds and ideas of the songs but feel as if they could have all been further developed and polished As a matter of fact, the album as a whole feels more like three fully-worked out (but perhaps not-fully-polished) epics with a bunch of partially-realized ideas included for the expressed purpose of reaching the proper length for a CD release.

C+/3.5 stars; an enticing-sounding album of prog lite that feels under-realized and/or prematurely released, which, ultimately, I find to be rather disappointing--especially from veterans--(veterans whose skills I know to be far superior to this).

This veteran Scottish prog band has been consistently dishing out quality releases at a steady pace since kicking off their recording career with "Disobey" in 2011. All of their previous five studio albums have met with critical favour, having a clear knack for consistently attractive progressive rock, with not only first-rate musicianship but a stellar vocalist to boot in Joe Cairney. Their line-up has also been quite anchored, only recently parting ways with bassist John Fitzgerald. So, dual guitarists Mark Spalding and Sam McCulloch, drummer Bruce Levick and keyboardist/composer Jim Johnston maintain their form, simply because they excel at their craft. In fact, they have elevated their considerable skills by having the audacity to start off this new 2023 release with two consecutive mini epics, thus putting to rest any misunderstanding (or mistake, Mr. Collins!) that they can only perform less than 5-minute neo-prog hummable ditties. The title of the album is "Threnody (Elegy) for a Dead Queen", perhaps a coincidence only with the recent passing of the British monarch.

The highly atmospheric synthesized sheen that introduces the 15 minute + "Summer Lies Beyond" slams the gavel quite emphatically on that debate, a glistening sonic evolution that provides amply amounts of subtle grandeur, gradually incorporating some deft polyrhythmic drum fills, crisscrossing guitar slashes that united with Johnston's extensive ivory arsenal. Cairney settles in on the microphone, spinning his tale. The shimmering effect in the lead guitar instills beauty and elegance to the arrangement which, like any outstanding prog piece, only serves to enhance the variations of all the intertwined themes on display here. Just like the title's significance of the spring's radiant blooming process that just keeps expanding as the sun caresses that planet with its warmth, showing the road towards summer's bliss. Beautiful is the only adjective I can think of. A stunning anthemic opener.

"The Seventh Seal" surely refers to the classic Ingmar Bergman film from 1957, where the Black Plague had devastated mostly Western medieval Europe by killing millions of people, hence challenging the notion of an all- caring divinity. Naturally, this challenging piece will require slightly more vigour in its disposition, a platform for the crusading Johnston's multitude of keyboards to battle with the story line, propelled forward by athletic drums, and a riveting and uncredited bass guitar. No mistake here Mr. Rutherford, this is definitely prog! The piano work alone shows a sense of delicate composure that proves the finesse involved in composing such impactful music. The serene vocal section is, pardon the overt pun, to die for, in battle or in sickness. Does it really matter? A half an hour in, after only 2 tracks, and I am slayed by these Tartan armoured warriors.

Emotional relief comes in the form of three shorter songs, just to confuse the enemy even more with subversive camouflage, beginning with the calm instrumental "We Are Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On", literally a sonic cinema open to interpretation. Vaporous and wistful, it serves only to reset the heartbeat, after all those poor departed souls, slayed by perfidious disease. How about a little ballad, that comes out of the blue? Well, "Jane" is simple elegance, a rolling bass leading the merry troubadours along a majestic ride, enhanced by a shivering guitar flicker, this could have been a classic Strawbs song, as it does incorporate some typical British folk tendencies. The aural sandwich is consummated by another brief orchestral flutter, showcased by strings galore, sultry axe phrasings, a roaming bass curvature and a steady beat. Simply celestial. This trio of pieces work like a charm.

The title track is the third epic offered, and as befits the extravagant title, it's a brooding, somewhat sorrowful yet also hopeful elegy, a musical lament for the deceased. Crystalline rivulets of Oriental sound , authoritatively fragrant and articulate, percolating with percussives, mellotron swaths and lingering on adventurously, I thought perhaps this was a Jade Warrior outtake. When one least expects it, the swerve into song happens at the very end, as a gentle electric guitar phrasing transforms the arrangement into a more conventional symphonic construct, Joe's high-pitched vocals recalling some Closeness to an Edge and massed instrumentation that give this both luxuriance and pathos. The outro guitar rage is absolutely mesmerizing.

Two shorter tracks lock the lid on this gilded coffin. "And Our Little Life is Rounded with A Sleep" has a classical/electronic keyboard slant that would astonish any unsuspecting listener by its cinematographic audacity, a modest nap before the big slumber of "Funeral Dance", a medieval adieu that has a memorial festivity to the impending voyage to Valhalla in the case of the crusading knight (Max von Sydow) in "The Seventh Seal" or perhaps the burial vessel leading to the island of Iona, the perennial Abbey cemetery for mostly Scottish, but also Irish, Norwegian and French kings.

This is an easy choice for election into the top five prog albums of 2023.

5 Regal requiems

In many ways I find it wonderfully strange that Comedy of Errors reformed and released a new album on CD in 2011, since when this has been their sixth, as to me they have always belonged to an earlier time. I am not sure exactly when they broke up, but it was before I was introduced to them in 1991/92, and still if anyone mentions their name I immediately think of the original tape version of "The Student Prince - Part 1" and Mark Colton (Credo) raving over them time and again. Since returning with the excellent 'Disobey' their line-up has been incredibly stable and there are few other bands who have managed to keep up with their output since then (a notable exception being Galahad and their offshoots), with IQ releasing just two albums during the same period, Pendragon two, and Credo just one (although I see from a FB post today that Mark and Mike Varty are in the studio).

In CofE we have the excitement and drive of a new band combined with the experience of a very old one (singer Joe Cairney and keyboard player Jim Johnstone both played on the 1985 'Ever Be The Prize' cassette while guitarist Mark Spalding joined soon afterwards). That they continue to perform exciting neo prog as if they have never been away, is simply wonderful, and yet again we have a great album displaying everything that is good about the genre, and them in particular. It opens with two epics, and another further along, so there are three songs more than 12 minutes in length while the other five are all four minutes or less. Some of these are instrumentals which allow the band to bounce along and have some fun, mostly acting as nice cleansers which give a pace and dynamic to the album. It is to the longer pieces to which fans will naturally be attracted as, like everything on the album, they are highly polished and wonderfully inviting. I don't believe Joe has ever really been given the credit for being such an amazing singer, and I am sure that if CofE had been formed in London instead of Glasgow then they would be much more of a household name. They are no longer using a second guitarist, and what we have now are the same quartet (with drummer Bruce Levick) who recorded 'Disobey', along with bassist John Fitzgerald who joined in time for the next one, 2013's 'Fanfare & Fantasy'.

This is exciting, vibrant, and if somehow you have missed out on Comedy of Errors and their albums so far then now is the time to rectify that as they continue to release wonderful works.