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Epignosis - Still The Waters CD (album) cover

STILL THE WATERS

Epignosis

 

Symphonic Prog

3.32 | 61 ratings

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Windhawk
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Still the Waters is the debut effort by US one-man band Epignosis, featuring compositions made and recorded over a good deal of time from what I understand.

Musically we're dealing with vintage symphonic prog of the atmospheric variety here, with a few nods in the direction of bands like Camel and Genesis. The acoustic guitar is a central feature on most creations, with some heavier drawn out riffs added in on occasion, while organ, synths, what I suspect might be an emulated mellotron and atmospheric guitar soloing adding the finer details and moods.

The best part of this album are the compositions themselves, especially the instrumental passages. Epignosis excel at conjuring up dreamy passages with strong atmospheres, and many of them are extremely intriguing despite quite a few shortcomings - at least according to my ears.

First and foremost mix and production leaves a bit to desire. I found the overall mix to be rather unbalanced at times, and whole some sequences came across better than others, many of them detracted rather than added to the ideas played out in my opinion. The drums and vocals are the main victims so to speak, but most of this album would have sounded much better with a more seasoned producer I suspect.

A decent drummer and bassist would have lifted the overall listener-friendliness of this production as well. While the productional aspects does deterioate the peformance in my opinion, some seasoned musicians would have lifted these parts of the immensely. Much the same can be said about the vocals, which arguably may be the weakest feature of this venture - although I think the production may be just as much to blame here as the performance as such.

And while Epignosis comes across as a decent guitarist, especially when playing the acoustic one or when providing atmospheric soloing, he's also an able man with the tangents. First and foremost he comes across as a skilled composer though. Somewhat naive at times I think, but these songs are good - and I would have loved hearing what bands like Ajalon or Argos could have made of these efforts.

Personally I found last track No Shadow Turning to be the best of the bunch here. Not that the composition in itself is so much better than the others, but because the instrumental performances and production on this one for some reason or other seemed to be slightly better than the preceding numbers.

If vintage symphonic prog is your thing and you enjoy listening to raw talent, Still the Waters should be an interesting album to check out. If you expect perfect sound and great performances this one isn't the album to get in other words, but if the compositions are more important for you than the performance as such this is an album that should cover your needs.

Windhawk | 3/5 |

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