THE SONGS & TALES OF AIROEA BOOK 3: MAGICAL CHRONICLE (ASCENSION)

The Chronicles of Father Robin return with the conclusion of their Airoea trilogy. Book I covered the land of Airoea, and Book II its waterways. You can read about my thoughts on those, as well as some notes on this band's background, in my original reviews. Book III, now, is exploring the skies of Airoea.

With the Airoea trilogy now concluded, I've included my thoughts on the project as a whole at the end of this review.

Book III begins with "Magic Chronicle". Gentle guitar and flute provide a warm backing for the opening verse, but it doesn't take long for momentum to start building. The rhythm guitar is charmingly ragged, and the lead has a refreshing, jazzy nature. TCOFR channel Yes clearly in this opening song, but it's not a rip-off. There's a synthesis of past influences into something original. Much as Book II fostered a vaguely aquatic feel throughout its runtime, this song has a fittingly light and buoyant aura. Even during more urgent passages, this song stays aloft.

"Skyslumber" slowly fades in, eventually emerging into a dreamy, floating verse. The guitars are again light and jazzy, and all the instrumental elements dance around each other delicately. It's a pleasant cut that builds up some good intensity by its end, but both its intro and its ending drag on too long.

This gentle mood continues with "Cloudship". The band's Yes-iness is a bit distracting here, however. In particular, this piece sounds a lot like certain passages on Tales from Topographic Oceans. The bit of narration in the middle also crosses the line from fanciful to corny. This is not the band's most compelling song.

"Empires of the Sun" does its best to make up for the underwhelming end to side one. It's immediately peppy and impactful, with a fun, muscular guitar riff. The blending of folk and harder-rocking elements is a rousing success on this song.

The last proper song in the Airoea trilogy is "Lost in the Palace Gardens". Mandolin and acoustic guitar give this song some slight Celtic or bluegrass flavors. (And bluegrass does descend, at least in part, from Celtic music, so that makes sense.) The chorus is strong and catchy, and the song eventually develops a smooth, rolling pulse. The drama is clear in the singer's tone, but the instrumentation is relatively restrained. The song winds down to a rather mellow conclusion, and this is followed by the minute long track "Epilogue", a collection of wind and water sounds.

Book III was the shortest album of the trilogy, and this was a pretty short review. This album felt like it lacked development, and a lot of the songs come off as samey. Nothing on this record is bad, mind you, but a lot of it just kinda floats along and doesn't really make much of an impact.

With all of Airoea in the rearview mirror now, I can take a look at the trilogy as a whole. Across the span of these three connected records, each successive installment grew shorter and gentler. Shorter is not necessarily a bad thing, but having each album be softer is simply not good structuring. Having a big, impactful, flashy opening, followed by a slow-burn part two, and a folky conclusion strikes me as a puzzling way to plot out the drama. A movie with a comparable structure would not make for the most entertaining watch.

This isn't to say it couldn't have ended on a calm note. There'd be absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problem is ending it on a 34-minute calm note, with only a couple flashes of anything else along the way.

In retrospect, Book I is my favorite of the bunch, and Book II has grown on me a bit. I'm writing this review about a month before Book III is officially released, so we'll see if my feelings change in the interim. (Edit 2/25/24: Nope, they didn't.) As it stands, this is probably the most disappointing of the bunch. Taken in isolation, Book III is decent; but in the context of a three-part, two-hour conceptual piece, it's a let-down. I respect this band for putting out such a big record of mostly-solid music, and I commend them for following through on a long-dormant dream. In the end, though, it is plagued by pacing issues throughout. The music, while enjoyable at points, is not particularly original. The Chronicles of Father Robin are an unnecessary project. The dozen or so people who are in every Norwegian prog band do much better work elsewhere.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/02/26/album-review-the-chronicles-of-father-robin-the-songs-tales-of-airoea-book-iii-airoea-overview/