AFTERGLOW

Wobbler has been one of those bands I could never figure out. They're an outfit of immense musicality and instrumental prowess,but I've always knocked them for just being all over the place, like they could never make up their mind on which direction to go. After my unreasonably harsh first reviews of "Afterglow" and "Rites at Dawn", I've given them second chances and second listens, and while at this point now I have heard much worse and much blander music, I still haven't gotten the entire picture.

"The Haywain" is a nice baroque minute long intro while "Imperial Winter White" is one of the two giants off this rather short album. It's an incredible display of instrumentality and technicality that's broken up by slower and softer sections that almost miss the point entirely (you stop the soloing just as it's developing into something really cool?) and vocals that just have no place in the song when they first appear seven minutes in for half a minute and then for another minute or so four minutes later. So, roughly a minute and thirty seconds of singing on a 13-minute long song, singing I can barely hear because it's mixed so far below the instruments around it? That's just bad producing and composing.

A nice acoustic "Interlude" bridges one big track to the other big track, "In Taberna", which is a bit softer than "Imperial Winter White", but shares the same blueprint: massive instrumentally focused juggernaut with softer bridges and atmospheric interludes, but this time, no vocals! Which is a good thing, because the way these songs are written, they're written for instrumental prowess and showmanship, not lyrical storytelling. Close the album with the very Medieval Times-esque "Armoury" and there's your album.

It's obvious the two big tracks are the highlights and the three smaller pieces merely afterthoughts, and the fact the album is only 34 minutes long for a prog rock album is a bit disappointing. It isn't a terrible album by any means, but it's a decently average outing for a talented band.

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