THINGS TO COME

THERE WILL BE DEFINITELY BETTER THINGS TO COME

Seventh wave is an obscure band form the mid-seventies Britisch scene. At times psychedelic / experimental ("Intercity Water Rat", "Premonition"), at times oldie ("Old Dog song") which is fully "Beatles" oriented, at times classical ("Smog, Fog and Sunset").

Some songs won't be any good like the Motown-ish "Fail To See" and "Festival" which could have been an excerpts of of West End musical.

This band is maybe too original to be categorized. Probably, and also therefore, they won't have the success they should have deserved. Not with this album which is not a great one, but with their excellent follow-up : "Psy-Fi".

At times, this album is too minimalist and hard to approach. There won't be any standout tracks. Too many very short songs : seven out of forteen will "peak" at much less or just above two minutes. Difficult to express your ideas within this run lenght IMO.

My fave is "Eversolightly". Somewhat melodic and featuring these typical and so special vocals from Ken Eliott who also wrote all the songs from this album. It will be mostly dominated with keys like in "Communication Skyways". This song forms sort of a quadrilogy with "Things to Come", "1991 1/2" and "Dance of the Eloi". The whole sounding as pompous as some ELP work.

Two stars and definitively waiting for better things to come.

"Things To Come" is the debut full-length studio album by UK psychadelic/progressive pop/rock act Seventh Wave. The album was released in 1974 through Gull Records in the UK and through Janus Records in the US.

Seventh Wave was formed by Ken Elliott and Kieran O'Connor who were former colleagues in the psychadelic/progressive rock act Second Hand. They decided to patch up their differences after a period of working on seperate projects (Ken Elliott made TV and commercial jingles). Differences that had initially led to the demise of Second Hand. They named their new project Seventh Wave. The idea was to make an album with only percussion/drums and keyboards/synth. No bass or guitars and only a few vocals.

The music on the album is rather original sounding as a result of that approach. The sound is keyboard/synth dominated and there are only a few, out of the 14 tracks on the album, that feature vocals. While Seventh Wave are often referred to as a progressive rock act, the music on "Things To Come" isn´t overtly complex and often it´s a bit superficial. It´s pretty obvious that Ken Elliott had worked with writing jingles in the preceeding couple of years because some of these tracks sound like something that could have been used in a TV or radio commercial. The atmosphere on the album is at times strangely jolly and it´s hard to get a hold of what Seventh Wave are trying to convey to the listener. The tracks just aren´t that exciting to listen to as actual songs. Vintage keyboard and synth freaks might find this interesting though. If only for the sounds.

The musicianship are on a high level. It´s obvious that Ken Elliott knows a lot about playing keyboards/synths and his inventive playing is what ultimately saves this album. The sound production is a bit odd to my ears. The keyboards/synths are way up high in the mix while the drums and especially the vocals almost drown at times. To my ears it´s not a very successful sound production.

"Death May Be Your Santa Claus (1971)" by Second Hand is a bit of a gem and therefore expectations to Seventh Wave and "Things To Come" were pretty high on my part. But this new incarnation of the band doesn´t come off to a good start if you ask me. "Things To Come" is a one of a kind album and that´s of course always a positive, but ultimately that doesn´t mean it´s a great listen. For that the songwriting is too shallow and the weak sound production doesn´t make it easy to love either. A 2 - 2.5 star (45%) rating is warranted.

Post-Fungus Enbglish keyboards/drums duo, led by Ken Elliot and Kieran O'Connor.Both have worked together in the Psychedelic Rock band Second Hand and its natural continuation Chillum, who had a more experimental sound.It was a while the two musicians hadn't worked together and Seventh Wave started actually as a project of experimenting with keyboards and drums.After a single under the Fungus moniker, Elliot and O'Connor renamed themselves to Seventh Wave and were signed by Decca's branch label Gull.O'Connor was also responsible for the production of their first album ''Things to come'', co-produced by Neil Richmond and released in 1974.

The sound of Seventh Wave flirts both with the GENESIS-style Symphonic Rock and the pompous synth-drenched Prog of acts like SYMPHONIC SLAM and STARDRIVE with strong Electronic agitations but also showers of romantic textures.Elliot performs on various keyboards including Mellotron, synthesizers, electric piano and clavinet, while O'Connor offers his strong work on percussion, drums, xylophones, cymbals and bells.While the album is split in fourteen short pieces, it often flows as a single solid piece with different variations under a strong orchetral/Electronic atmosphere.The vocals have a definite YES flavor, while musically the album is dominated by its evident symphonic and Classical tendencies through the cinematic keyboard waves, ranging from monumental TONY BANKS-like moog synth textures to BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST-like haunting, orchestral washes.The abscence of bass/guitars is overpassed through the use of dual and triple keyboard themes and the use of an orchestral bass drum by O'Connor.The musicianship is pretty consistent, although some commercial tastes is usually present, with emphatic symphonic moves, spacey Electronic soundscapes and a few lovely melodies in a GENESIS style.The impressive sound of xylophones and cymbals make Seventh Waves' approach very cinematic and thus even more charming.

Very nice, overlooked album of gransiose keyboard-based Progressive Rock with dominant symphonic inspirations.Balanced between melodious and more bombastic parts, it can please all fans of 70's-styled Prog music with a slight preference on well-worked keyboard lines.Recommended.