MASK

The Foundation is a project centered around keyboardist/composer Ron Lammers that focuses on progressive rock which is atmospheric, melodic, bombastic, and powerful in nature. The music we hear on "Mask," the dazzling first fruit of The Foundation, is especially generously covered with a rich layer of neo-prog. It must have been a piece of cake to find a suitable label for "Mask" since Lammers himself is the head of Xymphonia Records. Well, then you don't need to knock hard to get in.

Still, if Lammers had been running the local pancake stand, he would have also made a big splash in the field of record companies, simply because "Mask" is a beastly good album. The strength of this work, which is less than fifty minutes long, is that the underlying concept comes through well both in the lyrics and the musical expressions. The well-crafted artwork also contributes to this beautiful whole. The concept is semi-autobiographical and more or less tells the life story of Lammers himself, albeit from a general perspective. "Mask" begins in the womb and goes through birth to the performance-oriented society, followed by despair and dismay. Then the masks come off, the protagonist sees the light, and enters life with new vigor, with a fresh future ahead. All of this is translated into music by a ten- member ensemble, including chef de mission Lammers.

Three project members have a history with Knight Area: singer Mark Smit, who also wrote most of the lyrics, the excellent guitarist Rinie Huigen, and the phenomenal bassist Gijs Koopman, who enriches the music with his roaring Rickenbacker and deep bass pedals.

Additionally, there are three members from the band Autumn: Jens van der Valk on guitar, Jan Munnik on keyboards, and drummer Jan Grijpstra. Furthermore, three more musicians join to enrich the atmosphere of this album with guitar, violin, and flute. Yet, Lammers has not let his vision be clouded by the large number of musicians in the project and the many opinions that come with it. Although The Foundation can be compared in bombast to the Scottish band Pallas, it doesn't collapse under its own weight here either. That has everything to do with the compositional richness of the material. There's a lot going on.

The first two tracks are atmospheric and instrumental. The opener, Before The Dawn, has an unmistakable Pink Floyd vibe with an ethereal keyboard intro later complemented by lyrical guitar playing. Birth is also a magnificent accumulation of catchy melodies. What amazing lines guitarist Rinie Huigen can conjure from his instrument, and that while Jens van der Valk has already spoiled us with his six-string in the previous track. But it gets even better. In Climbing Mountains, Mark Smit starts singing, and from that moment, the album becomes even more alive. As if it's the most normal thing in the world, a passage with flute and violin appears. No lack of variety. In Blind To Reality, there's a guitar duel between the two virtuosos that's finger-licking good, and in Despair, as the title suggests, the atmosphere becomes much grimmer. The epic title track Mask is the game-changer of the album. Catchy neo-prog riffs make it the highlight of the album. The collaboration between Ron Lammers and Jan Munnik on the keyboards is often breathtaking in effectiveness. In the following three tracks, a somewhat lighter band sound comes through. Especially in Unconditional, this leads to a fantastic vocal line, and in the closer Future, Smit shows with his expressive voice that he is perfect for this project.

Ron Lammers has created an album with "Mask" that exudes professionalism from A to Z. The artwork and sound quality are sublime, but it's really the music itself that is next level. Listening to "Mask", you hear ten musicians bringing out the best in each other, and that's something special.

Orginally posted on www.progenrock.com