ABOUT TIME

First of all, I must say that I heard to talk about Also Eden, for the first time, on this website. I also must say that, since the first moment that I've heard talk about this band I became very interested about it, especially after read their biography on Progarchives, a couple years ago. So, soon it was possible, I decided to buy their first debut studio album, 'About Time'. I also must say that this wasn't the first time that a thing like that happened to me. Unfortunately, this is a very common situation with many other progressive rock bands. Many of those bands are practically unknown for almost all of us, which is also this case. This is very unfair, but luckily, we have Progarchives to do its great job.

Also Eden is a very interesting but quite obscure neo-prog band from United Kingdom. In reality, this is almost an unknown group. The band's members said that their music is influenced by the traditional symphonic progressive rock bands, like Genesis, Yes and Flower Kings, by neo-prog bands like Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Arena and Pallas and even by some other progressive rock bands with other styles of music like, for instance, Rush and Porcupine Tree. The group was formed in 2005, when vocalist Huw Lloyd-Jones and keyboardist/vocalist Ian Hodson, who had been working together up to that point, invited guitarist Simon Rogers to join them. With the addition of bassist Ralvin Thomas and drummer Mark Hall, the band's sound began to take evolve, culminating in this 2006 release, the album 'About Time'.

So, the line up of the band on 'About Time' is Huw Lloyd-Jones (vocals), Simon Rogers (guitars), Ian Hodson (keyboards), Ralvin Thomas (bass) and Mark Hall (drums). The music is all composed by Also Eden and the lyrics were all written by Huw Lloyd-Jones.

'About Time' is the debut studio album of Also Eden and was released in 2006. The album has five tracks. The first track 'Between The Lines' is a great song to open the album. It's a very powerful and vigorous song where we can clearly detect the influence of Genesis, Marillion, IQ and Arena, and also some slight influences from the progressive metal style. The sound is akin to some of the 80's progressive bands and Abel Ganz, in particular, come to my mind, while there are some traces of the early Marillion, towards the end. This is really a great track. The second track 'For Bumble' is a song that oscillates between calm and vigorous parts. It's a song with a beautiful beginning, with a very calm and nice acoustic guitar work, and again we can feel some influences from progressive metal sound. Near the end, there is a spectacular keyboard work that reminds me Tony Banks of the good old days in Genesis. This is probably, in my humble opinion, the best track on the album. The third track 'Pandora' is the smallest and calm song on the album, and probably, is the less spectacular, but it still is a very good track. It has an interesting start that reminds me the work of a clock. It's the more uniform song on the album with some good individual performances, which at times, reminds me Marillion. The piece is more centred on the lyrics and as a consequence the song seems somewhat flat. However, Hodson contributes with a reasonable guitar solo. The fourth track 'The Enemy Within' is a song with a piano opening that reminds me the beginning of an Anglagard's song, that fantastic Swedish progressive symphonic rock band of the 90's. It's a very nice, calm and uniform song, very melodious. The track has a spectacular final where again the influence of Genesis, in the Gabriel's era, is present. We can also hear the influence of David Gilmour's guitar on this track. Some shades of early IQ in a good way to wind up the track. This is another great track. The fifth track 'Children Of The Night' is a very powerful and vigorous track with great individual performances. It's a song more in the vein of 'Between The Lines' with a sound more in the rock style. This has another great vocal performance by Huw Lloyd-Jones, whose vocals are, in my humble opinion, very similar to the vocals of Alan Reed, the vocalist of Pallas. The band really shines on this song. It's a song very well arranged and the song has a rousing end to this surprising first album.

Conclusion: I must confess that I only know this band's album, until now, but I was very impressed with it. I bought 'About Time' some years ago and I became very excited with the quality of this album, when I listened to it for the first time. The rich textures of their music and the emotional lyrics about the real world, brings to us the great quality of Also Eden's songs, which has the result of bring more richness to our progressive world. Despite the influences mentioned by the band, on this album the main influences are Genesis, Pallas, IQ, Marillion and Arena, sometimes with a little touch of the progressive metal sound. However and despite all these influences, Also Eden has a very own and modern sound. Unfortunately, I think Also Eden is still an unknown band in the progressive rock world, and even on this site, we just need to see the small number of reviews and rates to conclude that. So, the last thing I can say is that 'About Time' is a fantastic debut album, and Also Eden is a band that deserves much more attention that it has had, until now.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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