AERIAL

Wow! As far as my knowledge about what Kate has done to-date, this is her best album and the most prog album so far. No doubt about it!

Why do I consider this as PROG album?

The Approach. The way she approaches this album is definitely different with any standard album creation. I truly believe that the making of this album was not something that was done for granted, say by way of jamming the music and then putting piece by piece together and then plug each piece into song that at the end formed an album. Rather, she wrote the concept first and then the theme of the album followed with story-line and at the end wrote songs that built a concept album.

The result is an excellent design of a concept album! I can sense this even through the cover design of the album. At the front page I can sense the view of the same object mirrored by way of seawater. From this, one can see it the upper side which is the view from above the water (the sky) and the view from below the water (the sea). The two views (or perspectives) are then presented differently by dividing the album into two pieces: CD One is "A Sea of Honey" and CD Two is "A Sky of Honey". Oh man .. what a prog mind does she have! She is truly genius on presenting her album this way. I salute her on this brilliant idea! Why "honey" then? Well, I believe this must be something very personal to her but I can sense that she views the world in a bright side as indicated through the beauty of nature and the sounds of birds you can find throughout the album. In fact I just purchased this album last week (week commencing 5Mar07) during my holiday in the village of Ubud, Bali Island. I purchased at one Music Center in Ubud Center and the album really matched with the situation when I was relaxing in my holiday season.

The Composition. Let's talk musically. I can assure you that the music is very satisfying. But .. hold on .. don't ever expect that this album contains upbeat music. Not at all. Almost all compositions were written with very minimum music exposure. You would not find anything rockin' in this album. If you expect that way, forget about this album! But, if you listen to this album with loud volume in your power amps with full concentration and you read the lyrics as she sings along .. I bet you will get all beautiful subtleties produced by this album! Really cool .!!!

How the music is like? In a nutshell, I can generally say that the music is very similar with Peter Gabriel solo albums. Of course this statement is not totally through for the whole album but some of them are in the same vein as Peter Gabriel's, especially UP album. Basically, Kate tries to combine all great elements she thinks feasible to be included in her storyline in this wonderful album, ranging from the sounds of a bird an percussion sounds like in world music. She does sing wonderfully in this album even though she has changed her style if you compare it to the way she sung "Wuthering Heights" or "Moving".

I do apologize for not including a track by track review as this album must be considered in a whole and should not be reviewed at track by track level as it might lead to wrong appreciation. I'm willing to but I decide not to do so. The stream of music is so excellent from opening track till the end of the album and I haven't found any bad track at all.

From the musicians involved in this album, you can see how serious Kate was in making this album an excellent one. She plays piano and keyboards supported by talented musicians like John Giblin (with his unique bass playing), Procol Harum's Gary Brooker, famous jazz drummer Peter Erskine. And last but not least . Michael Kamen does the orchestration with London Metropolitan Orchestra.

Why I consider this is her best?

Well .. I don't need to elaborate further on this. I don't think in her previous albums she did something similar like I mentioned above. This album is her best in concept development, songwriting as well as performance. Count on me ..

Conclusion

Because this is the best album by Kate best and the most prog compared to her previous albums, there is no reason for me not to recommend you to buy this album. No doubt, you have to own it! The only shortcoming for this album, in my opinion, is too much blank space on each disc. Disc One only consumes 38 minutes and Disc Two is 40 minutes plus. Why not combining into one CD? It's not quite economic with two CDs. Unless, she cannot compromise with the overall duration which only well over couple of minutes after one CD capacity. Lucky that EMI Indonesia prints this album locally with the price that I can afford: Rp. 150.000,- (USD 14) for double disc. Keep on proggin' ..!

"Pianissimo - Where sands sing in crim-son, red and rust. Then climb in-to bed and turn to dust" - Kate Bush