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Tony Banks - Seven - A Suite for Orchestra CD (album) cover

SEVEN - A SUITE FOR ORCHESTRA

Tony Banks

 

Crossover Prog

2.79 | 82 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

FalconBleck
4 stars #28 Review

Original Review was made on 12/3/2018 Decided to update it today 5/5/2021 while making a YT playlist with Tony's orchestral music, and in all this time my perspective on this album has changed.

1.- Spring Tide 9/10 (Update) This song has a demo on the "A Chord Too Far" compilation and now i love it, it brings so much calm to me, there are subtleties in the orchestral version that sound quieter or even removed from the original, while the orchestral has some stuff of its own, i think that with both you can make a better version, but for now, the better version for me is this demo. Also, somehow the orchestral is almost a minute longer while also being a faster in many parts, i think that this speed changes contributed more to me liking the demo version. In my original review (wich was pretty bad to be honest) i said "...i'd have liked it more if the piano took more over the orchestra." and that was actually the case, atleast something i said was right.

2.- Black Down 6/10 In my original review i said that this reminded me of a dark forest, and that this track doesn't move me much... that hasn't changed much, with Tony songs i usually expect many things, one of those is radical changes in chords, and it takes almost half the song to get there, in many compositions waiting is key, and i feel like waiting here, yet the peak of the song doesn't speak to me.

3.- The Gateway 7/10 Some quotes i did in my original review: - "At half, the piece gets more exciting, as if the gates opened" - "a really beautyful piece that takes time to peak" And i have to add, what makes this pretty are the beautyful chords, clearly made for an orchestra to tell the story, and i love it. At times it reminds me of dances and in others at certain movies that present this beautyful sight. Tony said in an interview that he is more comfortable writing dark sounding landscapes, and i think that here, he wanted to escape from that.

4.- The Ram 8/10 And thus Tony said "I want you to wake up and walk" and thus he composed this track. Going back to that darkness, for Tony an easy task it is. This track and the first one are the ones that remind me the most about his rock outputs, and i think that the orchestra had a good time with this one more so than the other tracks, it oozes with energy, but you gotta have a team that does both well.

In my original review i said "the only problem with this piece is that it gets calm for too long", and i still agree, the hook at the beginning repeats, but i expected more of it and more from it instead of going back to a slower pace. The ending of this track though, beautyful, Tony really knows how to make a beautyul ending when he wants.

5.- Earthlight 7/10 In my original review i used the word "Dynamics" to describe that the chord changes were faster than the first 3 tracks, that might be incorrect but i still feel the need to say that this track, being the shortest one barely has waiting moments and i really liked that and still do, the appearing chords are glorious and reminded me of my favourite soundtracks. "It gets the job done in a shorter time, it could be more interesting though." What i meant by that was that this song could've done more by being longer, because the idea was that solid. I think that the idea is ok at the lenght it is, but i still wanted to feel those chords once more.

6.- Neap Tide 5/10 In the contrary to Spring Tide, i think that this track's demo is worse than the final result because i think that this track was well translated to orchestra, but also this track is simpler, so the demo is simpler and hence worse. The main motif of this track doesn't interest me that much, and it repeats too much through out the piece, in my original review i said " this theme would've been better if added to another piece in the album, or shortened, or by removing the repeating part in the background" and that's still true, i have listened to this track a lot more than when i did the original review and it still doesn't move me.

7.- The Spirit of Gravity 8/10 Now this is a Tony Banks track, with many changes, sections, tecniques and weird chords, at almost 12 minutes is a complete ride, in my original review i said "this theme changes quite a lot, but i feel like the orchestra is not doing justice for more of the parts, this theme sounds more like an experimentation on doing an orchestra with a grain of classic Tony Banks on it", and i still wonder how the demo of this was, or how it would be with a different orchestra, but either way, this track doesn't get boring, one section probably won't move you but the next surely will, hopefully not to get off your sit but instead to admire and even when you are doing that, the song will probably change and make you wonder "Where to next?".

I thought that more things would change after almost 3 years, but the score and thoughts mostly remained unchanged, the final score however ended up being higher along with my enjoyment of this album, the final score is 71/100, and that definitely says to me that this is a 4 star album, i absolutely recommend the first, last and "the ram" tracks, a good time in all of those.

FalconBleck | 4/5 |

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