COLD FAIRYLAND

"Seeds on the Ground" is a release somewhat similar in style to Norwegian act Green Carnation and their album "The Acoustic Verses". The songs are all dominated by acoustic or acoustic sounding instruments, the bass provides a basic melody line, the guitars adds a slightly more complicated melody line harmonizing with the bass. Unlike aforementioned Green Carnation release vocals aren't a central element here though, instead violins and the traditional Chinese instruments Pipa and Ruan shares the dominating spot on these tunes, both of them adding a distinct folk-inspired and Chinese expression to compositions predominantly rock in style - although mellow in expression.

Good songs too, a few outstanding and the rest very good. Fans of mellow, progressive rock with influences from traditional Chinese music - or those who find this description interesting - have a release to check out here.

There's a mix of tunes here with great variety in style and manner. Haunting, atmospheric and at times gritty tunes in a distinct neo-progressive vein is the first of two dominating kinds of tunes here, with the only elements revealing their origin being the Chinese vocals. More folk inspired compositions, with ruan and pipa included in the instrumentation, makes up for the other style having a dominating place on this CD. A few numbers mixing these styles can be found as well, and there's also songs with funk and jazz influences in here. Rather eclectic in other words.

Cello and synths are both given prominent roles in these tunes, especially the cello - as this instrument is used throughout the album. The synths aren't everpresent; but when used they paint emotional, often majestic sonic tapestries. The drum sound is big, the bass probably sounds more dominant than it's supposed to in this live recording, and the guitar is used in acoustic, clean electric and distorted electric style - depending on style.

Good songs with good drive in these live recordings - the recording quality is so and so though, not extremely raw but fuzzy and indistinct in places. Which is probably the only negative aspect of this one.