THE CREEPING VINE

I have never gone through the band page of Cyan at this site and just before I review this "Creeping Vine", I clicked it and laughed with the opening passage that says Bob Reed has passion in color. He has CYAN and also MAGENTA. I don't know, his next project might be called as BLUE or RED? My experience with Cyan is not that much but from the two albums that I have, I like both of them: "Pictures from the Other Side" and this one. Musically, "The Creeping Vine" is more solid compared to "Pictures from the other Side" in terms of composition.

It's most likely you love this album .!

especially if you favor neo progressive music like Pendragon, Pallas, IQ, Arena and the like. In fact, this album sounds like Pendragon in more dynamic way. Surprisingly, the voice of Nigel Vole is quite similar with Nick Barrett (Pendragon) who sings and plays guitar in Pendragon. For me personally, I like the combination of keyboard and guitar work throughout this album as most of them are delivered at the passages with dynamic and energetic style, plus there are many catchy segments. From the opening track "Original Sin" (8:47) the band brings you to "the other world" through excellent combination of guitar solo as well as keyboard solo. The overall song is actually keyboard-driven with accentuated singing style.

"Valhala" (3:42) is a nice and mellow track with catchy melody. "Gwenan" (6:17) starts nicely with keyboard work followed with low register vocal notes, sung with solid accentuation. The song moves in traditional style which reminds me to the Scottish traditional music. "I Will Show You Life" (5:30) flows nicely from mellow to upbeat tempo with a passage that reminds me to Genesis "I Know What I Like" (well, at least you can observe how drum is played, quite similar with "I Know What I Like".) "Goodbye World" (9:54) starts with wonderful piano work followed beautifully with keyboard work. This song has a nice melody as well. I like the acoustic guitar work and vocal line. The song moves in crescendo at has its peak in the middle of the track when the tempo is quite fast and guitar plays its solo role combined by excellent keyboard.

"The River" (7:22) is another song with catchy piano solo at the opening part of the track. The first verse of the lyrics is being sung while the piano plays catchy notes at the background. It's a nice piece of music. The acoustic guitar work is also great. The guitar solo at the end of the track is stunning. But unfortunately it finishes through fading out. "Home" (4:36) is definitely an excellent track with great Floydian guitar solo. The concluding title track "The Creeping Vine" (9:30) is rich in texture especially the intro part which has variety of sounds representing something like the African jungle nuance. The vocal is nice, melodic, augmented by dynamic bass lines, Hackettian guitar work. The song moves from mellow to louder parts smoothly. It sounds solid overall.

Overall, this is I believe it's a very good album. The songwriting skill is excellent and it results into tight composition with many catchy segments throughout the album. Keep on proggin' ..!

Pecae on earth and mercy mild - GW (i-Rock! Music Community)