CORVUS STONE

My understanding is that this band came about when the three main musicians, Colin Tench (guitars), Petri Lemmy Lindström (bass) and Pasi Koivu (keys) found each other through Facebook, and they recorded most of the album before some other members came into the fold, which is one of the reasons why it is mostly instrumental. Before I started writing this review I thought that I would have a perusal of what others have been saying about it on PA. I don't normally look until afterwards as I don't want to be influenced by others, but I was intrigued to understand just how much of a minority I was going to be in. And yep, there are a lot of people who really like this and it is currently #33 in the Top 2012 charts. But, there are also quite a few people who feel the same as me, which is that it is perhaps a little too disjointed and fractured at times for its' own good. I have no idea how the songs were written, but we can go from crossover prog to something that is far more intricate and Zappa-like to sometimes go through fusion and into RIO, which definitely can make it confusing for the listener.

There is no doubt that the three of them are wonderful musicians, with Petri providing some incredible fretless bass lines, Pasi having a wonderfully delicate touch, and Colin being an amazing guitarist, no matter what style they are working on, but it doesn't always work. At one point I was reminded of the story Rick Wakeman told of him telling every member of his band that they were going to start with a different song the next night, so when they all started playing it wasn't exactly what was expected. Each of them was a professional but none of them were working together and that was the feeling I had here, but on only some of the songs, and that is why I found this an incredibly frustrating album to listen to.

It is very long for a single CD, a fraction under 80 minutes, and there are times when this is nothing short of sheer genius, but there are others when the listener just shakes his head and asks what one earth is going on. I have to confess that I smiled when I heard the snippet of "Smoke On The Water: inside "Moron Season", and again when "Oh Well" turned up inside "Scary Movie", and the latter is one of the standout songs on the album for me as it could easily have come from the masters of horror prog themselves, the mighty Goblin. The more I played this album the more I liked it, but consequently also the more I felt that there were some things wrong with it. I mean, a drum solo on a studio album in 2012? Come on, we weren't that fond of them in the Seventies (unless you were John Henry Bonham of course).

I had a long hard think about the grading I gave to this album, as there are many times when it is at least 4*, and others when I can only give it 2* at best, so 3* is probably fair. But, if I put this onto my ipod and only played the songs I liked then it would be 4/5. So, this is one when it really does pay to listen to it before purchase so give it some plays on Bandcamp and then either download or pick up the CD that contains a 16 page booklet.

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