SNOWTORCH

I feel like I've had a bit of history with Xavier Phideaux. It was 20 years ago I discovered Prog along with this site shortly after it. Let's just say it was overwhelming looking at all the bands and sub-genres. Where do you begin? And it is kind of amusing to me the first hundred albums or so that I bought, having no clue other than what reviewers were telling me.

PHIDEAUX's "Chupacabras" from 2005 was an early purchase and I loved it. A year later I bought "The Great Leap" and "Doomsday Afternoon" but neither of those did much for me. So in my little mind I decided to go for some of those albums he released before "Chupacabras", thinking they would be more my thing. Again another year later I'm picking up "Ghost Story" and "Fiendish" and I preferred "Ghost Story" but at that point I decided to get off of the PHIDEAUX bus thinking "Number Seven" is probably just like "Doomsday Afternoon" with the same or similar lineup.

Then "Snowtorch" comes out and people are raving about it. I don't bite at first. But eventually, around 2018, I did bite, and got hooked, lined and sinkered. Yeah I'm mounted on Xavier's wall somewhere. This is the one! My new favourite from PHIDEAUX. We get four tracks worth around 45 minutes, dominated by the two part title track. It's pretty crazy how this one hits me emotionally. And I'm talking about the music not the lyrics, which honestly have little to do with my ratings of albums. The male and female vocals were made for each other. Same style but different tones of course, but they work magic here.

"Snowtorch-Part One" is over 19 1/2 minutes and features plenty of piano and vocals from Xavier early on. We do get some flute before female vocals arrive. Organ is almost RPI-like at times. Those duo vocals just kill(gulp). Back to piano leading the way later on, as well as some synths before 16 minutes, and sax a minute later.

"Snowtorch-Part two" is over 16 minutes, and the first four minutes are very interesting. Atmosphere then takes over before keys arrive then a full sound. So good. A nice heavy sound after 6 minutes. Female vocals before 8 minutes, and I like the wordless vocals at 10 minutes. Then Xavier is back singing with piano but she will be back late. Man, the melodies are so beautiful on this record. Such a feel good sound. The two shorter tracks aren't as good, but they do add to this album, not take away.

This goes straight into my "best of" Crossover list, and it's easily a top ten for 2011. What a pleasant surprise this was, and it's good to be back on the PHIDEAUX bus.