ISILDURS BANE & PETER HAMMILL: IN AMAZONIA

Swedish proggers Isildurs Bane & legendary vocalist Peter Hammil's collaborative effort 'In Amazonia' is one of the most exciting releases of 2019 - a somewhat concise album, consisting of six compositions that take just forty minutes of the listener's time, full of weird musical passages and unusual instrumentations, with the band using a variety of interesting instruments, like layered Mellotrons, stunning moog sounds, some trumpet makes the cut here and there, and very gentle guitars, all topped by Hammill's idiosyncratic vocals and often undecipherable lyrics.

This is a very memorable record, despite the unusual song structures and the varying lengths - also, the 'exotic' instrumentation is so rich that it really shifts the listener's attention to the details and the manner in which songs gradually unfold; This works more than excellently in combination with Peter Hammill's vocals, which are certainly some of the most recognizable ones in the genre. A total of 15 musicians plays on this record, some of them being the members of Isildurs Bane and some being guests, like Pat Mastelotto from King Crimson, who plays drums on the third track. Killer songs, engaging tempo changes, atmospheric instrumentations - all aspects that make up for a really good album that is capable of transporting the listener to another place, maybe Amazonia, in this case.

'In Amazonia' kicks off with the enigmatic 8-minute 'Before You Know It' - a suspense-ridden composition, packed with tribal-like percussion, sparse guitars, and intelligently-modelled keyboard sounds, gradually climaxing just to fade out in the last couple of minutes - a very intense song! This is followed by the shorter 'Under the Current', with its beautiful melodies and more electronic edge; Peter Hammill delivers some of the more mysterious lyrical content on the album here. 'Side one' concludes with another 5-minute song full of electronic instrumentation, gradually climaxing in the end - this is, of course, 'Aguirre'. The band manages to flawlessly carry the listener through these compositions, as if this is an intense ride through the Amazonian forests, by building-up intense songs that just make you want more and more of this.

The fourth track on the album is the 'big epic', the 10-minute 'This Is Where', probably the most straightforward prog song, with the quirky synths and more 'disordered' melodies - overall, the album feels like prog but at the same time it is not explicitly prog, which is probably what makes it so compelling and different. The 9-minute 'The Day Is Done' comes next, which is the least dynamic composition on the album, reminiscent of something like 'World Record'-era Van der Graaf Generator; an emotional, yet hardly listenable song that could be somewhat of a challenge for some of the listeners. Finishing off is the coda-like instrumental 'This Bird Has Flown', where the band revisit the theme from the opening track.

Highly recommended album for someone who is looking for a little less standard modern progressive rock album - the music on here is memorable, compelling, and very unusual, although it is not even necessarily a rock album. It actually feels more like a painting made of sounds!