THE ROARING SILENCE

I really like this album! I think it is the best and most progressive one from Manfred Mann's Earth Band. The Roaring Silence is a very consistent album, all the songs fits very well together to constitute a unified whole; the songs are all very well written (Blinded By the Light is a cover of a Bruce Springsteen song, but - as always with the Earth Band - it is very different from the original). The vocals of Chris Thompson are very good and in some moments remind me of Bono from U2. The keyboards are great and very distinctively Mann, the guitar work is very good and the drums and bass are also good; nothing to complain about here! The album is also very well recorded and produced and it has a great sound.

Overall, the guitar and keyboard solos are all valid and relevant and never meandering and directionless as on some earlier Earth Band albums; they are focused and fit well into the context of the songs. The solos have never been so well integrated within the songs an Earth Band album before. Still, the instrumental parts of this album play a very large role as opposed to on some later albums.

The keyboards are varied with electric piano, grand piano and synthesizers playing large roles in the sound. The electric pianos have the same sound as on Supertramp's albums.

Blinded By The Light needs no introduction, I think. The second song, Singing The Dolphin Through, is the one I like the least on the album. It features good guitar work and good vocals, but it is a bit too long. It could easily have been shortened by a couple of minutes. It ends with a rather wild sax solo. However, it doesn't distract too much from my overall enjoyment of this album. Is this song a cover song by the way? I don't know. It is credited to someone named Heron.

Questions is the first really great song of the album. It features grand piano and very melodious guitar solos. Being a bit of a (semi-)ballad, this song is a bit untypical of the Earth Band, I would say. The great Road To Babylon is as symphonic as Manfred Mann's Earth Band ever got - it features a female choir to great effect! Starbird also have great vocal harmonies that remind me of Gentle Giant, but more down to earth. This Side Of Paradise features keyboards that has the typical Neo Prog sound.

Some parts of Waiter, There Is A Yawn In My Ear remind me of Refugee (a short-lived band with Patrick Moraz and some former members of The Nice). Yet other parts of this song are more in the Jazz-Rock vein. You could say that this last song of the album is the Los Endos of The Roaring Silence (Los Endos is the instrumental that closes Genesis' brilliant album A Trick Of The Tale). Apparantly, however, Waiter, There Is A Yawn In My Ear was not the last track on the original release. But I think the album runs better with this song as its closer.

Highly recommended!

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