HEARTSCORE

Released in April 2016, Heartscore's eponymous album is clearly not a debut affair, as a glance at an extensive discography reveals. Could this collection mark a new direction for Dirk Radloff's studio project, or a return to an older stylistic approach ? "Setting Poems To Music" is the Heartscore maxim, with this set of songs selecting American authors spanning the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Being a lifelong Poe enthusiast, my eye was drawn to "The bells" so, curiosity piqued, I streamed the song twice via Bandcamp and was sufficiently impressed to order the CD. A gamble? Perhaps.... perhaps not, let's see....

The CD booklet and cover artwork is clean, uncluttered and elegant with source poems printed in full, author portraits and a short biography which also lists Radloff's musical influences. It's essentially a one-man project with Dirk being responsible for everything except the lead vocals, which are credited to Chris from "studiopros".

Close the drawer, press play, here we go :

A furious drum tattoo, with something of a Western-movie feel opens "Hope is a thing with feathers". A statement of intent with shifting accents and clever arranging which, for some reason, reminded me of Ray Noble's "Cherokee" from the big band era, albeit with very different forces. Clipped and muted guitars give way to a heavy rock chug, jazzier transitions, neat call and response sections and, all the while, Chris' vocals soar above, handling difficult changes in both meter and harmony with aplomb.

The second track, "Alone", provides quite a contrast with Radloff's plaintive violin lines recalling the neo-classical music of the twenties and thirties. Dirk also contributes a multi-part harmony vocal group to this song in a style suggesting equal parts Igor Stravinsky and Brian Wilson.

"Sylvester's dying bed" is the next offering, partnering the jazz-age poetry of Langston Hughes with an arrangement recalling seventies rock-gospel musicals or Steven Sondheim. Lots of theatrical flourishes with "blue eyed soul" vocals from Chris contrasting with the accented multi-part harmonies of Dirk.

The musical theatre aspects are noticeable quite a few of the other tracks, possibly as a result of fusing classical, jazz and rock influences in similar proportions to Bernstein and Sondheim. This wonderfully intriguing coalescence is nowhere more apparent than on the fourth song, "Neither far away nor in deep", drawing upon classic "driving-rock", eighties metal, musical theatre and jazz fusion, all in the space of the first three minutes.

The song that started it all for me is next. "The bells", a second shy of ten minutes, adapts Poe's verse and offers a dazzling, ever-shifting arrangement with complex rhythms, modal jazz harmonies, and a convincing range of moods and emotions to suit the poetry. The synth brass voicings, unfortunately, sound a little artificial and create something of an eighties feel for me. However, they are treated and mixed in such a way as to bed-in with the arrangement. Noticeable but not overly prominent or distracting. "The bells" is descriptive music in the manner of a Straussian tone-poem or Mahlerian orchestral lieder with contrasting rockier movements which I can only describe as being akin to Led Zeppelin arranged by The Mahavishnu Orchestra. This is progressive rock in every sense.

Halfway in and the Heartscore style is becoming more familiar, drawing on an incredibly wide range of influences, passing them through the Radloff- filter and rearranging with more than a spark of original genius. Occasionally there's a sense of Chris struggling with a polysyllabic vocal line, as if he's rushing the words to cope with a meter dictated by the source texts, and changing the feel from lyric-singing to recitative, but it's all in keeping with the albums's ever-present theatrical influences.

The second half of the album continues to surprise, delight and reward with the mellow, electric-piano textures of "Maggy and Milly and Molly and May" making for a jazzy ballad graced once again by Dirk's superlative violin lines. A special mention to the funky Weather Report-esque groove of "Railroad avenue" and the jazz metal crunch of "Haunted house" with its spectral synths and clever spacious production.

The closing track, "Opium fantasy", is as addictive as the title suggests with a dreamy cocktail of twenties neo-classical, acoustic Zeppelin and hints, perhaps, of Siberian Khatru.

The CD is equipped with an unlisted bonus track, an eleventh wonder which I won't elaborate on. After all, everyone likes a nice surprise.

How to summarise such an eclectic collection of songs? It's not "immediate" rock music where you can settle into a comfortable chair and sing along after the first listen. It won't help you tick off the miles on long highway rides and it's certainly not music to provoke foot-stomping and beer glass swinging. It is music that will reward you with every listen, revealing fresh ideas, interplay, arrangement details and thematic connections with every spin.

I've listened to this album six times in full concentration/darkened room mode and I'm unearthing new gems with every few measures, continually doffing my cap to Dirk Radloff's compositional and arranging talent.

Different? Yes. Progressive? Definitely. Highly Recommended.