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Aunt Mary - Janus CD (album) cover

JANUS

Aunt Mary

 

Eclectic Prog

3.44 | 87 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

MrJonas
4 stars This is an old norwegian classic that deserves more fans than it ever had - which is the case with all good norwegian prog bands. Norway is a small country with less than 5 million inhabitants, and back in the 70's the norwegian music-audience was more into dance band-music than prog rock. Which is sad, because less local popularity eases off the chances for an international breakthrough. Some norwegian prog bands actually became more popular in German and Switzerland back then. Aunt Mary is not the only good prog band that never became much popular globally, but they're sure one of the best I've heard, and I've heard some rarities during my 17 years in this world.

Path of Your Dream has a simple but tasty two-chords progressive-introriff that really rocks my sock. It breaks down in the verses, and has some odd & catchy lyrics. It's easy to listen too, as it is a simple composition, but might give wrong impression since it's so simple. Mr. Kaye sounds like it could be a Beatles-song, experimental and poppy. Nocturnal Voice is a song with lots of various sides and a lot of changing paces, where drummer Ketil Stensvik shows some creativity, probably inspired by Zeppelin- drummer John Bonham. The song ends surprisingly with the intro of Path of Your Dream played once again. Which could make the song more creative if the riff hadn't been used before. The next song; For All Eternity is my favourite song of the album. It has its moments where you can really heard that this is a talented band, especially in it's up-tempo moments. The only thing that slightly bothers me, is that they should have a better singer. Someone with a voice lik Jon Anderson would fit in nice in Aunt Mary. In the end, For All Eternity is an unforgettable song - it's highly progressive and catchy for those who like prog with shrieking steel-string guitars, fast tempo and Yes-like vocals (though Yes' singer is way better). Hidden Track is just a funky guitar-solo lasting about 30 seconds. Sounds like guitarist Bjørn Christiansen wrote while beeing stoned. The next track is Stumblin' Stone which I think is a great heavy rock song, with heavy distortion on the guitarists Stratocaster ( I think it is. The song might a little straight forward, and uses half the song to get started, but I think it's just gradually building up the excitement. Good song! All We've Got To Do Is Dream is the song that is closest to a ballad on this album, with beautiful acoustick guitar-licks, and some synth-riffs in the refrain, where the band chores: All we've got to do is dream - dream of life in the sun! It's a beautiful song which gets me in a good mood. Candles of Heaven is another great track, which is based on Bengt Jensen's organ-playing and synth-solo and contains Christiansens perhaps parodical Gong-like lyrics. Nice, hard to describe track, which slides perfectly into the album-closer What A Lovely Day. This song really makes the goosebumps slide down my back. The song last for almost 6 minutes of two sequences, first one is an acoustic part, where Christiansen once again showes how passionated he is a guitarist. The next part of the song is heavy, with one guitar holding a heavy rythm, while the other guitar plays fantastic solo with so much feeling and insight. A perfect album-closer!

MrJonas | 4/5 |

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