THROUGH THE HOURGLASS

3.5 This one was mildly disappointing although to be fair there wan't a lot of expectations on my part other than the fact Conor Riley from ASTRA/BIRTH is on here playing bass and adding some vocals. That was what moved me to pick this one up as Conor joined this band in 2018. A five piece of basically keys/bass/guitar/drums then a fifth member is either adding a second guitar or extra synths to the proceedings. The keyboardist and singer John Gamino is the leader and he wrote the lyrics.

Being a huge fan of Psychedelic music I did find this one interesting if nothing else but I just wasn't convinced. Very much hit and miss and man my favourite song on here "Death In Spring" is a trippy and melancholic piece that takes us back to the early 70's. Everything seems to work for me here unlike the rest of the album. PINK FLOYD by the way came to mind many times on this album.

The opener "Burning Daylight Pt.1" is also a good track and quite heavy at times. A two part song about the California wildfires. The first part good, the second part bad(lol). My least favourite track is the second part where the vocals just ruin it for me but amazingly the whole song just doesn't work for me at all. "Passages" is the longest song at 11 minutes and certainly this is the most proggy track with plenty of atmosphere, synths, piano and guitar. Some heaviness but man the atmosphere early on is pretty cool. Distortion and FLOYD too.

The title track is the other one I really am not into at all. Again the vocals are part of that and while this is better than the second part of the opener I just can't get into it. That leaves the closer "Run" which is a nice way to end this 39 minute album. I like the drum work and the sounds that echo. Some heaviness and my second favourite after the previous track "Death In Spring" so yes this record ends well.

I have a fairly large Psychedelic collection, I think next to Jazz it's my biggest but again the music here just doesn't convince me despite a few really good tracks.