NOCTURNE

Ahead of its official release date I was kindly requested by the band to review their third album 'Nocturne', so first of all my thanks to them for the privilege. I have to say that I did not know their first two albums so it was a new band for me. According to the liner notes, 'Nocturne' should be listened to preferably alone and in the dark, since the music is intended to bring about feelings and sensations which one may experience when in darkness. And the general atmosphere of the album is indeed haunting, not dark music as such, but dreamy and ethereal, more oriented to conveying moods and atmospheres than to keeping you busy with different things at once. The nice artwork by Katrina (Tree) Stewart complements this mood well. Besides a short vocal introduction we have 3 tracks with running times between 8 and 11 minutes and one final long track clocking 20m45s.

After the aforementioned short vocal introduction 'Prologue', a distorted guitar gives way to the first proper song the instrumental 'As Darkness Falls', the guitar keeps its motif shifting octaves as the keyboards alternate between moods and soloing, we then get a more jazzy ¾ section and an atmospheric 7/8 section before returning to the main theme.

The second track 'Moonlight' is also instrumental, beginning with slow piano and switching to an almost hypnotic mid- tempo central section. Again the music focusses mostly on soloing over chord progressions rather than using proper melodies ? choruses.

'In the Dead of the Night' (nothing to do with the UK song) is the first track with vocals although these are mostly limited to singing the song title in repetitive fashion, first by Tree and later in the song by Ally with Tree doing the backing parts. The fretless bass and the sax provide a welcome variety in the soundscape, and this track has indeed a more jazzy feel to it.

The final track is the 20 min 'The Child Within' and I find it the strongest. It has more clearly defined melodies and more developed lyrics, taking advantage of Tree's nice voice timbre. It moves through different sections with synth pads, organ and also some fretless bass, some different time signatures and guitar solos which often remind of Pink Floyd.

This is a pleasant album to listen to but I find it a bit too simple for my personal taste. Too much oriented to moods and atmospheres, with plenty of soloing over chord progressions and not containing enough interesting melodies or musical resources. If you fancy such atmospheric Prog you will enjoy the album.