SEA OF THE SINKING SUN

The beach that is a mile from my home is my favourite place to be in the summer, especially to see the sun sink into the water as the album title conveys. And the album cover really speaks to the beach and summer. Yes it makes me really look forward to spring. I have to say that Canadians and Australians seem to have a special connection, and I have an uncle who grew up near Sydney and moved to Canada when he was 25 and married my mom's sister. I worked for him for 18 years and he was the best boss I ever had. I loved the stories he would tell, and a great memory I have is of his dad coming over to Canada purposely in the winter to see snow for the first time, and playing road hockey with him and a bunch of my cousins. Funny thing but he never came back to visit (haha).The guy responsible for MYRIAD is Matthew Heindorff who has been called the Australian version of Steven Wilson.

"Gone" opens with some beautiful acoustic guitar and Steven Wilson-like vocals. The synths are a nice touch as well. "Outside Smile" features an atmospheric soundscape that is dark at times. Some good synth work follows and later in the song we get a great guitar solo with the drums pounding away. Nice. "Picnic In The Park At Solstice" is an instrumental that is less than a minute long with a nice acoustic guitar melody. "Cold Under This Sky" opens with keys,as heavy drums and vocals follow. Some riffs 3 minutes in as the sound gets heavier.

This song blends into "North Sea Road' one of my favourite tracks on the record. It opens with the wind blowing and something jangling in that wind, guitar comes in after a minute.The lyrics are sung rather quickly. "Destiny's Midst" is another good one ! Opening with the sound of a radio playing that gets louder and more audible as it becomes this song. There is a nice scorching guitar solo with crisp drums. Well done. The final song is "Almost A Joker", it has a nice contrast between the heavy drums and the vocals. I like the spacey, dreamy synths and vocals here.There are some beautiful guitar melodies 7 minutes in.

This album and band are well worth checking out. I was fortunate enough to get a copy of this from Greg Walker.