THE GATHERING OF THE KRUMS

This is one of those hidden gems from the late 1990s. I suppose I could call it "forgotten" but I doubt it was ever very well known in the first place. I would guess that even a lot of hardcore prog fans missed this one at the time and that is quite unfortunate. As for the music, this is a very retro sounding (but definitely not neo) symphonic prog album but I don't think you have to be a symphonic prog freak to enjoy it since there are other things going on here as well.

It all starts with a rather brief vocal piece called "invitation." Next up is "Pitch the Wort" which is an instrumental guitar rocker. After that we get "The Return" which has heavy guitar (but with a very 70s kind of guitar sound and not of the metal variety). This track also has lots of blaring mellotron. The fourth track is "Leaves" and starts out with nothing but keyboards (including a prominent organ). After a brief silence the vocals come in. This is another good track with fine guitar and mellotron again making its way to the foreground at times. Next up is "the party" which again more or less follows the same formula. Track number six is the title track with good multiple backing vocals but it is very brief. "Fields" is next and starts off as all keyboards. This part reminds me a bit of Synergy at times (definitely a good thing). It then delves into more of a traditional kind of song with vocals. Eventually the vocals give way to some very good instrumental interplay. This is probably one of the best parts of the album. The vocals come back after a lengthy instrumental section and then the track finishes off with an instrumental keyboard part again. The last track is "Depth of Time." This track, like most of the others, also has very good keyboards and of course the retro heavy guitar again. This track continues in much the same style as the rest of the album. However, this one also features some very fine synth playing and is a fine way to end the album.

It's too bad they were a one and done kind of band. The drummer, Marc Cella, (who for a while ran the online prog music shop, M&M), sadly passed away in 2010 and so maybe at least partly because of that, the band never really had the chance to get together again. Mark also played drums in the band Eccentric Orbit (their second album was released after he passed away and so only features a few songs with him on it). What we have here though is probably one of my favorites from the 1990s. If you are looking for more albums from that decade to add to your collection, you could do much worse. Maybe more like 3.8 but I will round up to 4 stars.

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