FLESH

What does a band do, when the creative juices have been flowing to such an extent, that they have considerably more material to record from, than the length of an album? The answer is to return to the studio at a later date, and make a record out of the surplus material. While this is a treat for their fans, 'Flesh' should always really be regarded as an album of additional material, rather than a fully formed album in it's own right.

The results are a little like Metallica's 'Re-Load' was to 'Load' in that in general, the material is not as strong, and in Everon's case, has proved for a welcome yet markedly uneven offering. In essence, the album consists of 8 tracks, of which 'And Still It Bleeds' and 'Flesh' are lengthy, complex and certainly the heaviest material ever recorded by Everon, which would sit far more comfortably on Vanden Plas's 'Beyond Daylight' than they ever would have done on 'Bridge'. The remaining 6 tracks are by way of contrast, essentially all ballads of varying depth and quality.

Commencing with the title track, 'Flesh', which is a leviathan by Everon's standards, weighing in at over 14 minutes. It offers such variety, both in tempo and scale, from soft piano melodies though to twisted, contorted, angst ridden vocals and crunching guitars which are like nothing that Everon have written to date. That said, this is an exceptionally fine track, beautifully structured with a powerful climax which would astonish many on this forum, who had seen Everon's name under 'Art Rock'. For me, 'Flesh' is matched in quality by 'And Still It Bleeds'. This is a powerful opening track which many bands would have been proud to have written, and is enhanced by a beautiful cello passage. As such, it would be most welcome if Everon were to pursue this particular experiment on future albums, even if that were to quite clearly take them out of the 'Art Rock' category, because if the remainder of the album had been made up of tracks of similar quality, then 'Flesh' would reach the coveted 5 star status.

At the risk of giving the impression that I am not a ballad fan, the remainder of the album consists of ballads, which are about as far away musically from the title track, as it would be possible to get. The pick of these is the haunting 'Missing From The Chain' with its beautiful violin intro, and perhaps the atmospheric closer, 'Back In Sight'. Two of the remaining tracks, 'Already Dead' and 'The River' are sung as a duet between Philipps and Judith Stuber, who admittedly has a beautiful voice, which could have been put to better use. Sadly however, the material is both bland and unexeptional; unbecoming of a group who have proved they can reach much higher.