LIVING FOSSILS

New comers William Gray came as a big surprise to me. Their first (and hopefully not their last) album Living Fossils is a nice mix of Heavy prog, in an Ayreon fashion, dark gothic classical compositions, symphonic keys and a stellar production for such an underground band. Although hailing from Argentina I would have never guessed this guys come from here, for the lyrics (and even the band's name) is in English, but, what's maybe most important, there is no recognizable Spanish accent in the singing, the English is quite pure, which is always nice; if you are going to sing in another language better do it right!

I discovered William Gray, not because of Porgarchives, but because the prog shop I some times go to buy me some nice (and expensive) prog albums. This time, I wasn't even going to buy something; I just happened to be around the neighborhood and said "Ok, why not take a look." And so I did. I stepped in, looked around, some nice stuff as always. I could not take it anymore, so many prog albums around me. I had to buy something! So I thought "Why not some Argentinean prog?" So I asked the owner to give me some nice national prog. "Here you go; William Gray".no, William Gray doesn't sound Argentinean. there must be something funny about this. Nope, there wasn't. "Well. I'll take it".

Now that I have told you the (incredibly interesting) story of how I got this album, I will talk about the music. First of all, William Gray is the band of Sebastian Medina. Does that ring any bells? No? Well, no surprise here, I didn't know about him either. Then, why do I mention him as if he was someone? Well, after this album. he should be someone! He pretty much wrote the whole thing, and let me tell you, this guy has some mad skills! The end result is very varied, rich in instrumentation and instrumental songs, strong vocals, also due to Medina and a wide range of instruments, that go from the most common guitar, bass, drums, keys to violins, viola, cellos, flute, bombo legüero (whatever that is) and bandoneón, a classic tango instrument, and as you might have already guessed it. there is some tango here and there. As I said, the result is amazing. The album is a concept one, although the story is not that clear. In fact, the booklet even has a comic that tells the events as a storyboard, but to tell the truth, they don´t help much, and here is why. To fully get the concept one has to go to their live shows (which where few but quite special from what I have heard), for on stage they play their music while they project the comic in a screen in motion. Interesting indeed! As I said the whole thing is a concept album, so I won't go into details about every song, for it has to be heard in it's totality.

I strongly recommend this album to anyone into concept albums (that is most of us.), dark melancholic prog, Ayreon and modern symphonic prog, I guarantee no disappointments!