EARTHLY PARADISE

This is another of those hidden gems that we find all of a sudden, that's the precious thing about progressive rock, it does not have limits, and there is plenty of music to discover. So with this album, I, once again, found interesting and well composed music from a band that I didn't know anything. The name of this, their debut album is "Earthly Paradise" and it is the only of theirs I know, but I have read that their second album lacks of creativity and challenging moments, so I believe with this record is enough.

A relatively short album reaching 32 minutes, with only 5 songs oscillating between 5-7 minutes, making a total time of 32.

It kicks off with "Actions and Reactions", and since the very first note we can imagine the music's destiny, I mean, it goes towards the symphonic realm, which is very clear when you listen to that amazing keyboard sound, of course I must mention that I has mellotron, so that gives an extra point. Later female vocals appear, with a unique style, and a minute later the keyboards return faster and challenging, really interesting mix of Eloy and Genesis. Then vocals appear again and the song calms down a little bit, the textures created as background are also well placed, an excellent song.

"Silas Marner" is the longest track and starts very different from the previous one, this time with some wind sound, a soft acoustic guitar and a delicate flute sound. A minute later synths appear with a different sound, but keeping the same atmosphere until minute 3 when drums enter and the song turns faster and a bit psychedelic. Vocals enter (good, but not my favorite vocals), mellotron prevails and a symphonic oriented sound shows the road to delight. The last part is the same as it began, wind effects, acoustic guitar and flute, pretty cool.

"Wings of the Dove" is another keyboard oriented track, but this time the mood is a bit nervous like a movie scene, you don't know what's happening and what's next, this song is great because it maintains you there expecting the next offer, there are several mini changes within this instrumental song, the drums are always great very well placed and the keyboards make it extraordinary.

"Andas" begins with some piano and all of a sudden a weird synth sound which turns spacey and even weirder, making the sound of a robot or something. Later the song changes and makes a rockier sound with guitars, nice bass sound and constant great drumming, but this is just in order to change again and due to the synth sound reminding again to some space or psychedelic act, such as Eloy. The drums are excellent, and the flute addition helps the track getting a new identity, great instrumental song without a doubt.

And last but not least, we have "Mitternachstraum" which supports the idea of labeling this album as a symphonic-psychedelic; you will notice it clearly in this song due to the synth elements, which provoke some great background effects that will be perfectly listened with god headphones, here, we can understand they were also influenced by some krautrock pioneers such as Tangerine Dream, great way of ending an album.

This is an excellent album, as I said, another hidden gem worth discovering, and absolutely recommendable, my final grade is 4 stars.

Enjoy it!

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