REDEMPTION

Apart from a couple of guests adding little touches here and there, this album is by the Ars Nova/Nepenthe core trio of Matt Mizenko (basses, guitars, keyboards, programming, vocals), Todd Mizenko (guitars, keyboards, programming, vocals) and Jamie Boruch (drums, percussion). They had broken up at the turn of the century when nothing had been going well for them on a musical basis, and although they had always kept in touch it was only after Covid they decided to work on some songs again, for the first time in decades. They brought in Brett Kull (Echolyn) to assist with the engineering and mixing, and he was the person who put them onto me. There are not many bands who arguably have released three different albums under three different names, but that is essentially what we have here, but it never seems as if Matt, Todd and Jamie have been away from the scene for so long, as this demonstrates just how many hours they spent together in the old days. What we have here is a polished "debut" (it is their first album, but also their third) which shows a band staying true to their roots and possibly getting a little heavier but still having a load of fun and providing quality melodic progressive rock music.

They are still determined to be Neo by ProgArchives, and that is probably the most accurate although there are still high levels of commerciality within, although the guitars are much more to the fore this time. In fact, if they had been put into Heavy Prog they could well have been accepted there as well as this definitely has a much rockier element. I was a little surprised at the vocals, as they are very good, and given they used a guest singer when they were Nepenthe, I had thought they were not confident or good enough to do it themselves, but that is certainly not the issue here at all. I honestly don't feel these guys needed "redemption" from anything they had been involved with previously, but they obviously felt they did, but the decision to work just as a trio without others has obviously been the right one as here it really does feel as if everything has been turned up a notch, with far more complexity in what they are doing.

This album has been getting some positive response so let us hope that continues, and we do not have to wait so long for the next time as if you enjoy rock-based prog with great interlaying of keyboards and guitars being driven strongly by the drums, all with nice vocals and hooks, then this is for you.

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