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Johannes Luley - Tales From Sheepfather's Grove CD (album) cover

TALES FROM SHEEPFATHER'S GROVE

Johannes Luley

 

Crossover Prog

3.74 | 89 ratings

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octopus-4
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RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
3 stars My bad. 7 years ago Johannes Luley asked me to review his new album, then I totally forgot about it. Now, reading back my inbox I've found his request, and luckily his album is still available on soundcloud so I've had the possibility of listening to it and wirte this review, just "a bit late". While the Moth Vellum debut sounded like a Genesis tribute, this one has a lot of connections with one of my favorite albums. It's derivative, and it may be considered a bad thing, but Jon Anderson has never been able to repeat himself at the level of his masterpiece Olias Of Sunhillow. Johannes Luley, instead, has created what may be considedred a follow-up to the Anderson's masterpiece.

It features percussions ,bells high pitched vocals, choirs, almost all the ingredients of Olias, but has something that Jon doesn't have; classical guitar skills. In this sense, Guardians Of Time is an excellent track which takes some distance from Olias. The vocal harmonies of Kristina Sattler and Luley in the first part are replaced by a relaxing instrumental part.

The 12 strings guitar on Moments sounds a bit more closer to the Rabin's period of YES with a little touch of Parallels from Going for The One. So if you like YES, why not giving this album a try? Also the sleeve design is clearly reminding to them. It's clear that Luley wanted deliberately to sound this way. If this was the purpose, he totally succeded. Give and Take is clearly divided in two distonct parts: the first solar, with the guitar sounding like Howe, the second darker based on percussion and more in the vein of Olias.

It's not Mood For A Day, but the acoustic guitar played like a classical is one of the typical Howe's things. Luley does the job very well, and the melody is consistent, not just a guitar exercize.

We Are One: let'ìs joke a bit: with Anderson you are two. If I didn't know what I'm litening to, I would guess that there's a Jon Anderson's album I hven't listened to yet...

Atheos Spiritualis is Latin, and as many may have guessed, it means spiritualistic Atheist. It's mainly a bolero without the crescendo and the repetitivity of the famous Ravel's one, neither as the Abbadon's by EL&P. It has a classical feeling and is based on major chords. It reminds me to Rossini. at least until percussion, vocals and steel guitar bring us back to Olias' world. The third part of this track is darker and, probably because I have Anderson in mind, I recall Kitaro's Dream. The keyboard here sounds like Vangelis, that's another artist that I personally like a lot.

Voya is the closer. It's another song in some ways mimic of Anderson and Howe, but I think to hear some "external" influences: in some passages I hear the influence of Simon and Garfunkel. Not too strange if you think to the YES debut.

So, it's a good album. Derivative, but probably it's what the artist wanted to do. Again, my bad. 7 years for a review of less than 600 words. Apologies to the artist for my delay.

octopus-4 | 3/5 |

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