RETURN TO MINGULAY

Colin Tench asked me to hear his most recently project he was working on. I really didn´t know anything about this group, neither was I aware of the work of singer/songwriter Andy john Bradford. However, I was quite pleased with what I heard: a kind of mix of folk, country, rock, prog and pop, all lead by Bradford´s laid back vocals and his 12 string acoustic guitar. On all the tracks he is backed by a very good group of musicians that includes, of course, Colin Tench on guitar, Marco Chiappini (keyboards), Stef Flaming (bass) and Victor Tassone (drums), plus Andres Guazzelli on piano and orchestrations. The results are quite charming, melodic and convincing, specially if you like folk rock. So the likes of Neil Young, early Al Stewart, Fairport Convention and the like comes to mind (a feeling quite enhanced by the use of 70´s vintage keyboards timbres). Still, the music here is quite original.

I´m sure a lot of people on ProgArchives will not like Oceans 5 music: they will probably say it is too melodic, too straight ahead folksy and/or too predicable. Granted, there is very little prog in here: the songs are short, rarely going beyond the five minute mark, and as all the folk based stuff is, the importance given to the narrative is paramount. so there is not much space for long solos or tempo changes and complicated arrangements. However, with excellent musicans like that, those spaces are very well used every time they do show, with Tench and Chiappini filling in with tasteful and skilled guitar and keyboards lines, while the rhythm section gives a strong base to pump up the songs to new heights.

There are no real highlight on this CD: all the songs are all very good and the tracklist is quite harmonic. But if you asked me what my favorites songs on this album is I´ll probably cite the slightly different Dancing With The Rhythm Of The Shore and the beautiful, plaintive Sails Off The Bay (VERY nice Gilmour-like solo here, Colin!), two very strong tunes where the musicians show what they can do inside a simple, but efficient, song structure. The production is simply perfect, with all the voices and instruments very well balanced (again the feeling of a modern version of a 70´s very organic recording comes to mind).

So, if you like folk rock, or anything very melodic and tasteful, this is surely an album to get. I was tempted to rate this album 3 stars since there is hardly ony "real" prog in it (as for symphonic prog or RIO fans are concerned). Personally I´d give 4,5 stars. So a 4 star rating is maybe a little high for this site, but still I recommend this CD to any prog lover who, like me, thinks that great melodies and some simplicity are not an insult to prog.