THE GENTLE ART OF MUSIC

Nowadays is not that easy to reach 10 successful years making good music, it is also more difficult within the progressive rock realm; this German band RPWL have achieved that goal this year, as some of you may know they started as a Pink Floyd cover band but later they managed to produce their own sound, Neo Prog oriented but with some symphonic and psychedelic influences in their music. And as a result of their tenth anniversary they decided to release this excellent album entitled "The Gentle Art of Music", and wisely decided to make it a two-CD album, now I'll tell you why I said wisely.

The first CD can be named "The Compilation CD" because it gathers songs from all their previous albums, those songs are some of their best and most recognized ones and that would be an excellent starting point for anyone who is new to RPWL's music. A thing that I would like to mention, because I liked a lot, is that they decided to put the songs in chronological order, so as the tracks are passing, you will appreciate the band in their different eras, like a great retrospective. This can be noticed when you see that tracks 1 and 2 belong to their debut "God Has Failed" album, tracks 3 and 4 out of their "Trying to Kiss the Sun", tracks 5 and 6 from "Stock", tracks 7 and 8 belong to "World Through My Eyes", track 9 comes from their limited edition album called "9", so I believe they chose in purpose that track number, and the last two tracks of this first CD are from "The RPWL Experience". So what more can you ask here, it is a (maybe brief) but excellent taste of all their albums. Highlights from this first disc are "Home Again", "Roses", "3 Lights" and "Silenced"

And the second CD, which is called "The Revisited Album", is not that classic compilation album; I mean it is not a "The Best of", but a curious and very interesting selection of classic RPWL tracks with new arrangements and guest musicians, these are different versions, to be clearer. Some examples are "Sleep" where you can listen to a kind of eastern or Indian touch; "Moonflower" as a delicious Brazilian ballad, an outstanding version of "World Through My Eyes", with again some Indian instruments that add a very special flavor to the sound; or "Bound to Reach the End", with some violins over there creating a nice mood.

This second disc also features two new RPWL tracks, "Watching the World", which is just a nice and catchy song that follows the same verse-chorus-verse structure, with some nice guitar over there but without being an innovative piece of music. The other track is "Cake" which has a kind of alternative rock flavor, it is also a catchy song but much more enjoyable than the previously analyzed, it has a great keyboard sound and a happy feeling.

So "The Gentle Art of Music" is an excellent 10 anniversary album from RPWL, an album that I have really enjoyed since the very first listen, a very good album from those who already know (and like) the band, and also good for those who barely know their music.

My final grade, 4 stars.

Enjoy it!

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