PERELANDRA

Glass Hammer was my favorite 2000-era prog group for a 'long' time, i.e. since I bought "Chronometree" followed by a few more, and comparing with other 'modern' prog groups. They were about tied with the Flower Kings at that time. I will now start reviewing some of their CD's, and I will not start with their first one "Dunadan", because... well, it is not very interesting. They are known to be very much keyboard-oriented, with the extraordinary Fred Schendel at this helm; he is backed with Steve Babb at the bass. And those two are also known to be able to fill in an entire CD with all the instruments, with Fred being able to play everything, helped with their own studio ! They are an interesting group to discover, if you don't know them... But they have much better productions. So this one ?

The complexity in music is great, the songs are very melodic, the impro-keyboard sections are top-notch, and the support they find with 'guests' musicians and singers is great. In here, the most interesting songs are "Time marches on", "Illusion", "Perelandra" and "Heaven" (the long ones). They are able to develop strong symphonic creativity in those songs, and there is room for instrumental sections, which permits to hear the musician talents. They also introduce (if I'm not mistaking) the singing of Walter Moore... In my view, he is THE voice of Glass Hammer (GH), being more present on subsequent productions; he is powerful and energic, always right on track even when he 'lets go' his power (in later outings, I consider the addition of Carl Groves a disaster, and Jon Davison... a distraction). Too bad Walter is not there anymore... and GH is not my favorite prog-2000-band anymore !

The other tracks are a little weak, compared to the short 'epics', and a score of 4 might be too much because of that. At least, the melodic quality is there, which will become more and more a problem in the newer CD's (Ascent and If). As an average, the rating of "Good but not essential" appears adequate. Of course, some of their later stuff will reach (in my book) the perfect 5... Coming...