BEAUTIFUL

Yacobs: "beautiful" (Gold und Trier Records 2020)

Ulf Jacobs publishes his solo CDs under the project name "Yacobs". Since 2001 ("still love you") he has been playing albums that transform his personal experiences, his feelings and thoughts, his love for sophisticated music and his philosophy of life into soundjourneys. He develop his songs about love, about nature and the universal basic themes (joy and sadness, reflection and loss, confidence and fear ...) into continuous prog-rock-suites.

With his 6th soloalbum Ulf Jacobs builds on his previous concept-works, but "beutiful" is also different and shows a noticeable further development. First of all, he uses sound-collages sensitively to expand the sound-spectrum. The atmosphere of the music is much more relaxed, less rhythmic, but more flowing, melodic and mature. Piano- and keyboard-sounds are in the foreground, have enough space to unfold and give the album an orchestral sound. The homogeneous use of the Mellotron makes "beautiful" a prog-oriented album, but catchy yet complex refrains also sprinkle some pop into the songwriting. This creates a noticeable bridge to art rock.

"beautiful" is fun, is consistently worth listening to and an excellent album that belongs in every sophisticated music collection. Ulf (music, text, vocals, keys, drums ...) is supported by several guest musicians (from Argos, Yesterdays, Mutabor) who refine the opulent production and the balanced sound with guitar, bass, backing vocals and flute(!). As always with Yacobs, the album should be heard loud and complete.

German project YACOBS is the creative vehicle of composer and musician Ulf Jacobs, and in progressive rock circles he is probably best known for being a part of progressive rock band Argos for the past decade and a bit. This solo project has been an ongoing feature for a bit longer than that though, with the first Yacobs album seeing the light of day almost 20 years ago. "Beautiful" is the sixth album from this venture, and was released through German label Gold Und Tier in the fall of 2020.

While "Beautiful" isn't an album to seek out by those with an interest in stark contrasts and dramatic developments, those who regard the words elegant, smooth and beautiful to be positive and the mention of layered keyboards and various Mellotron-tinged sounds to emphasize that will find a lot to enjoy on Yacob's latest solo album. Especially if music that glides back and forth between mainstream pop/rock and the more inviting aspects of progressive rock is regarded as a positive. Personally I regard this as a solid - and beautiful - production.