THE GHOST MOON ORCHESTRA

"The Ghost Moon Orchestra" is the tenth studio album of Mostly Autumn that was released in 2012. This is the second album recorded with Olivia Sparnenn as their lead singer. This time she succeeded in sounding even stronger than on "Go Well Diamond Heart". It's remarkable that this is a studio album with the same line up of their previous ninth studio album "Go Well With Diamond Heart", which isn't a very common with this group. The only other occasion that it happened before was with their second, third and fourth studio albums "The Spirit Of Autumn Past", "The Last Bright Light" and "Music Inspired By The Lord Of The Rings" respectively, on which all three albums have the same line up.

So, the line up on "The Ghost Moon Orchestra" is Bryan Josh (lead vocals, lead rhythm and acoustic guitars and keyboards), Olivia Sparnenn (lead vocals and percussion), Anne-Marie Helder (vocals, keyboards, flute hand drum and percussion), Ian Jennings (keyboards, piano and Hammond organ), Liam Davison (vocals and electric and acoustic guitars), Andy Smith (bass guitars) and Gavin Griffiths (drums). Troy Donockley (low whistle and Uilleann pipes) also participated on "The Ghost Moon Orchestra" as a guest musician, as is usual with many Mostly Autumn's albums.

"The Ghost Moon Orchestra" has ten tracks. The first track "Unquiet Tears" written by Josh, Jennings and Sparnenn opens the album wonderfully. It begins with the crystalline voice of Olivia accompanied by a dramatic piano and some bass notes. After a couple of minutes the full band comes up and explodes into a very beautiful symphonic piece of music. The second track "Drops Of The Sun" written by Josh and Jennings is a song that returns to a more familiar territory of the band. It's another rock song with vocals shared beautifully between Josh and Sparnenn. This is a song with a similar vein with the other previous short numbers from the group. The third track "The Devil And The Orchestra" written by Josh is a song that follows the same mood of the two previous songs. It's a very powerful track with some heavy musical atmosphere and with some nice guitar work. This is a heavy rock song with a Deep Purple's style and which is only sung by Josh alone with his very own vocal technique. The fourth track is the title track "The Ghost Moon Orchestra" and was written by Josh and Sparnenn. This is a song with very sinister lyrics and musical atmosphere, in a perfect line with the title of the song. It's another great and very dynamic song with a graceful vocal and piano melody and an excellent lead guitar solo at the end. This is one of the best progressive tracks of the album. The fifth track "This Ragged Heart" written by Josh is a semi-acoustic pastoral song with the low whistle, and the flute harks back to the folk sound of their earlier studio albums. This is a song with great melody and has one of the most uplifting tunes that Josh has penned for many years. The sixth track "King Of The Valley" written by Josh represents the back to most hard rock songs with Sparnenn displaying just the right emotion level all over the song. It's a song with some reminiscences of "Heart Full Of Sky" and where the Hammond organ solo performed by Iain is absolutely impressive. The seventh track "Things That We Noticed" written by Josh is a very beautiful ballad, reflecting upon the change and the loss, and is an understated thing of beauty, really. It represents on the album a relatively breezy song with another strong and beautiful vocal performance of Sparnenn and it has also nice chorus. The eighth track "Tennyson Mansion" written by Josh is a multi-part epic track that opens with a mellow guitar sound providing the land for the great evocative main theme with lush keyboard work on the backdrop, and it includes also a terrific Josh guitar job. This is probably my favourite track on the entire album. The ninth track "Wild Eye Skies" written by Josh and Sparnenn is a song with a Celtic musical atmosphere, provided by the Uilleann pipes performed by Troy Donockley. It has a soaring chorus and a great guitar work, and is, in my opinion, a perfect song for Sparnenn's voice. The tenth and last track "Top Of The World" written by Josh is another great and beautiful track that shows a hauntingly good vocal duet by Josh and Sparnenn, and again, a truly impressive extended Josh guitar work. This is a song that closes perfectly and beautifully this magnificent album.

Conclusion: "The Ghost Moon Orchestra" is a great album and finally and fortunately represents the return of Mostly Autumn to their great musical works. I'm sincerely convinced that "The Ghost Moon Orchestra" is, without any doubt, the best studio album made by the band since 2006, the year of "Heart Full Of Sky", and that it was very close to be a masterpiece, like that album could have been. "The Ghost Moon Orchestra" continues the trend of the recent studio albums from the group, remodelling themselves for the 21st century with a look over the shoulder to their musical past heritage. With this album Olivia Sparnenn proves that she is a stunning, vocally and visually, front female member of the band that replaced Heather Findlay perfectly well. The album also proves that Bryan Josh remains the great alive creative force beyond the group despite some excellent and significant contributions of some other band's members.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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