THE CIRCLING HOUR

Brilliant!!!! Just simply brilliant. The Circling hour opens with Joanne's gentle vocal stating the "Fragment of a firey sun" theme that will re-surface at times throught the album...and then...almost as soon as we are relaxing into that delicious ambient world Iona can create at will...an explosion of sound, and we are off into the most fantastic multi-layered intro to the opening song Emyrean Dawn. I have seen them do this live 3 time already...its magic!

Perhaps the best 2 songs on the album, for my mind, are from Troy Donockley this time. "The Wind off the Lake" and "Skymaps" are largely instrumental, and truly wonderful compositions. Great guitar solo from Dave on the latter and interesting backwards guitar loop (or something ike that) in the background. Sky maps really shifts...Joanne's voice breezing in on the flight with "Notice how" repeating as the music glides along is a stroke of genius.

In true Iona style the Wind, Water & Fire trilogy is a great finale encorporating all they do best, rock, folk, ambient...no forget the labels...you can't attach them to Iona's music. There's a bit of everything in there. Some nice Canon effect on Frank van Essen's atmospheric Violin, Joanne's swirling wordless chanting, some rocky 5/4 timing and the most wonderful magestic summing up of the whole album at the end of Fire...then the return to the beautiful Fragment theme at the end.

Corr...not 'arf! As fluff Freeman might have said. Marvellous stuff. I can never understand why this band are not household names.

Tim H in Munich

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