CONJURE

We are always on the look out for the next ... progressive music ... something or other ... and somehow, it seems like it never arrives ... and we can never find it. And sometimes our searches take us to the usual things ... that we have heard before, and they don't excite you anymore, but you can still listen ... it still has some energy that you remember from yesterday, or last week ... or it might just be that you like that one speecial kind of sound ... similar landscape for your mind. Well, if there is enough courage to listen to something that you have no idea what it will be, or sound like, that has musicianship that rivals anything that you can think of, there is an album for you! There is a requirement first ... your suspension of the belief, or disbelief, that what music means to you, or that it should have this or that in it, or where are the lyrics that supposedly take you to all the lands of the mindscape? Given that condition, you will, then, be ready to experience this album. That album is HERD OF INSTINCT's latest album "Conjure". It's always a challenge for me to find words to describe the feelings and the excitement of a lot of the music I listen to, but on occasion the combinations are just way ... way out there ... and they just stand up so well, that you wonder ... how can someone come up with all that ... where is the creativity and design coming from? Yep ... the wording matches! It's a massive herd of instinct and then a desire to put it together. This album, is for those folks that like many things ... and specially an unbelievable combination of material that will have you sitting and wondering ... what was that? They just did that? Yeah ... some of the best music I have heard in the past 5 years, and that is saying a lot for a group of folks that I have loved for a long time, with a few friends here and there to create a magic journey in listening. This album starts well, and it is not until you get to the sequence of "Brutality of Fact", "Alice Kriger pt. 1", "Solitude One" and then "Ravenwood", right up to "Mother Night" ... that the real strength in this band comes so strong ... like there is no such thing as "heavy instruments" or a description that tends to define anything, and when you hear the mix here of soft and hard, it will surprise you, and probably help you re-think what progressive music really is. This album, probably features some of the best guitar and bass work I have heard in quite some time. Some of the press material loves to tell you that this has elements of King Crimson, and that this album will fit those fans really well ... but you all of a sudden hear something else that might surprise you ... and that was one of the things that used to keep us all in touch with that band a long time ago. And now, if you need something that will get your tastes flying around, the work in this CD should be enough to get you going and then some. In my book, this is better than King Crimson for my ears! In the midst of all this, there are loops by Steve Tibbetts and some work by Colin Edwin of Porcupine Tree ... and if you think the mix of these people is odd, then you don't know the atmospheric pieces that Djam Karet has been doing for more than 20 years, and the mixes of many of these things with ambient sounds, and then the band flying with it ... is one of those things that kinda defy, not only tradition, but also the bounds of the definition of music ... there are not that many albums of music out there where the compositional standard is so insane and amazing, that you will be lucky to hear it in your lifetime. But I can tell you that this is going to be in my car on my drives every where for a while, as fruit for the soul to appreciate music, and some folks that not only believe it, but live it, and don't have to talk about it! Just play ... just play! It was, for me, the start of the 2013 year, as I just received this, and had no idea what it was or what it would be about ... but I can not tell you how to describe many albums by Djam Karet, or various solo albums, the last of which I still do not have the right words to describe it for you. Such is the nature of tripping along with music that loves to take you away ... and wait until you get the pieces at the end ... they will floor you even more ... a massively great finish that defines what this album is really all about ... MUSIC ... absolutely GREAT music ... and there is no other set of words for it. I have re-written this about 20 times ... in between the listens ... of a great album to start out the year! "A Sense of Ending" and "The Secret of Fire" ... will pretty much tell you what this is all about, and how these mixes come together so beautifully. It leaves you wanting more ... and a lot more! ... please ... some more ... Pedro Sena (2013) Printed with permission