WILLOWGLASS

I love this album, Andrew should be very proud of it. The streamed song: Garden is an excellent example of what's in store so if you like that, then I would say the rest of the album is just as strong.

All the tracks are very melodic and heavily laden with mellotron choir and strings. There is also a good deal of flute that reminds me of Gabriel's efforts in early Genesis - well enough played but obviously not Andrew's first instrument.

Track 1 Peace is a short piano and mellotron/strings piece. Very nice though I wish it was blended into another song (not necessarily the next) a bit like Horizon's and Supper's Ready as the 5 second gap at the end slightly spoils the flow.

Track 2 Remembering starts with guitar against a piano and mellotron backdrop. There are sudden changes of mood when the tempo suddenly picks up at 1:45 and the piece is then dominated by a faster synth section and quite noticeable bass. Then at 4:05 it goes into twanging guitar against an acoustic guitar backdrop almost like a cross between David Gilmour and Chris Rea. The track winds down with more mellotron and flute - lovely!

Track 3 Garden You can hear for yourself. It starts with acoustic guitar and mellotron strings and flows into some nice floaty flute and then at 1:38 the track picks up and there's plenty of drums, flute and piano. Some sort of synthesized trumpet breaks in and it really works. At 3:30 it almost stops with just some gentle plucking of acoustic guitar reminiscent of Hackett/mid Genesis. At 5:52 a lively new section starts with some beautiful mellotron choir in the background and a fab synth section which winds down to the end in a tinkly way.

Track 4 Is another tiny interlude - hence its name Interlude No 1. Just acoustic guitar in solus and an excellent prelude to:

Track 5 The Tower of The King's Daughter is my favourite track on the album. It has that slightly mediaeval sound to it which is obviously a figment of our imagination as none of us are old enough to know what mediaeval sounds like! Felona who also reviewed this album thought the girl on the cover was in mediaeval clothes then changed her mind. I think she could be right though the clothes seem to be ambiguous leaving it to your own imagination to decide. Anyway, the music is overall faster than the other tracks and richly laden with mellotron choir and strings and that quite noticeable bass guitar. If you can remember the TV series Robin of Sherwood starring Jason Connery with music by Clannad, then this piece almost belongs in that series except it is obviously a more prog interpretation to the adventure than Clannad's folky tunes. One final point, after buying the CD, I downloaded it to my iPod and was amused that the song was misspelt: Daughter is spelt as Daugter.

Track 6 Summer's Lease is an 18 second interlude that sounds like The Beatles' Strawberry Fields. It's not unpleasant in any way but I simply don't see the point in it.

Track 7 Into The Chase is quite folky with lots of flute and mellotron strings. Around 1:44 there is some organ work that flies in and out of each ear via the stereo separation and then some quite dramatic mellotron choir thunders in. Then the tune changes direction and sounds much less folky.

Track 8 A Blinding Light A good intro which is followed by a nice piece of mellotron choir at 0:44, a flute solo at 1:28 followed by mellotron choir and some nice organ work that sounds really retro like something you might have heard on Foxtrot. Then it gets lively with some more noticeable stereo separation going on with different instrumentation in each ear. At 5.05 a really good piece of electric guitar kicks in and weaves around until the song fades out - which it does in a strangely abrupt manner. I'm sure the song would benefit from a slightly longer fade.

Track 9 Waking The Angels. I like this song very much because it's basically a very nice tune. However, I think that the mellotron choir that bursts in at 2:03 is done in really clumsy way. I am a Tron Maniac and used to think there was no such thing as too much Tron Choir - but unfortunately this song proves me wrong. I can hardly make myself write this but......I think the song would probably sound better without it. The latter part of the song has some brilliant electric guitar then when it fades out there's a few seconds of some strange twinkly thing. Why is it there? I guess only Andrew knows.

Track 10 The End is another small piece of acoustic guitar. Pleasant enough but.....was it worth the effort?

As you can't do half stars I've given it 4 as it most certainly is an excellent addition to my prog collection. If you love mellotron choir you're in for a feast - you might even think there's too much. I understand at the time of writing Andrew is recording another album and I will almost certainly buy it on the strength of this album!