HYMNS FOR HUNGRY SPIRITS, VOL. II

The variable geometry corresponds to needs and desires depending on the circumstances? But what is the columnist telling us here? Let me explain, I really enjoyed GREAT WIDE NOTHING's first album in the spring of 2019 and not at all the second in November 2020....So what about the third, especially since it is presented as the second half of the album? previous opus? (Just look at the dust jacket). I had in 2019 said that GREAT WIDE NOTHING was a cross between RUSH and EMERSON LAKE and PALMER with strong heepian intonations in the guitar/keyboard duels.

The opening title here "Blind Eye To A Burning House" looks very much like a STATUS QUO boogie woogie, you dance, you tap your feet, more rock than progressive but as drinkable as possible, once in your head, it doesn't comes out more (8/10). The shortest title of the album "The Portal and the Precipice" is also the least pleasant in my opinion, despite the omnipresent and rounded organ of Dylan PORPER who triturates it to the extreme (6/10).

The very rock "Viper" which follows and it is an understatement to say it, is not too much to my taste either, too basic to stand out from the common musical mass, too bad (7/10), it is saved by a chorus and welcome piano notes in its second half, a piece that can nevertheless be listened to. The penultimate track "Inheritor" is much more exciting, more in the spirit of the first album, with Daniel GRAHAM's lively but silky vocals and a six-string gimmick that reminds me of THE CLASH in its first part and THE CURE in its second, easy to memorize like the inaugural title, I like it a lot (9/10), who said that the eighties had left us no legacy?

The best for last with part two of "To Find The Light" (part one being on the previous disc) a pearl worthy of "The View from Olympus" which appeared on the ATLANTA band's 2019 debut album , almost twenty minutes of intense happiness that we do not see pass, the first four minutes are instrumental, Daniel's vocals at their best, he does not force his timbre (which we can reproach him for in the titles 2 and 3 of this disc), the guitars are absolutely lyrical, the rhythmic ad hoc, thanks to Jeff MATTHEWS, and the following instrumental part which begins at 7:50 and extends until 15:25 ( almost eight minutes therefore) is a pure moment of musical bliss (10/10) which ends with a Dantesque finale magnified by the keyboards and choirs of Dylan PORPER, we will have to rethink this track if we have to designate the top pieces of the 'year.