CORVUS STONE UNSCREWED

With a cover like that, and with no less than three tracks bearing movie´s motifs, it is no wonder that Corvus Stone´s third effort gives the impression of being a soundtrack, or maybe a homage to movies soundtracks. I don´t know if that was the original idea, but certainly it works very well that way to me! The album has some new material plus some extended or remix of older stuff. At first it sounded to me like a bad idea, after all the band is too new to be redoing their "old" tracks. However, upon listening to the album I found out that they fit in perfectly. Unscrewed does seem to be a terrific soundtrack of a film: even if you don´t see with your eyes, the music alone will take you into a wild ride! It´s a roller coaster of emotions and sound landscapes.

Unscrewed changed my perception of Corvus Stone. Where the first two albums are very good but lacked a cohesive feel, this one finally sounds like all the tracks were played by the same band. Not that the group decided to be less eclectic, no. On the contrary, there are as many variations and styles as ever, sometimes during the same tune, but somehow they now seemed to have developed their own personality and you can feel that on this record, even if the songs are quite different from each other on several occasions. And the good thing about Corvus Stone is the fact that their tunes always, no matter how freakish they may sound at times, have a discernible melody line. In other words, even when courting the avant guard, RIO or jazz, their stuff always have a point. Unlike many other prog acts it´s never complexity for its own sake neither an exercise on self indulgence or some internal joke. There are always good melodies. That´s what set them apart and make their music both innovative and familiar, experimental and accessible.

In the end I found Unscrewed their most satisfying and coherent album to date. They added to their already many qualities (strong compositions, emotional guitar lines, excellent bass runs, vocals when needed and so on) what was missing from their previous two albums. This is the first Corvus Stone record that I listen from start to finish without feeling that I´m listening to a different band on some tracks. I really hope they´ll follow this trend for future releases. They seem to have found their own style and sound. The chemistry has been good from the start but now the band sounds much more than just the sum of its parts, and that´s a big difference! Kudos to them!

Rating: something between 4 and 4.5 stars. Highly recommended to anyone who likes progressive music in general.