THE DEAFENING SILENCE

Listening to it right now for a 5th or 6th time!!!

ABEL GANZ is an obscure Scottish Neo-Prog band which deserves some more attention.Their best effort entitled "The Deafening Silence" has been released in 1994 and it has 7 songs in best PALLAS/85-87 MARILLION/Menel's IQ traditions - not complex but very melodical and enjoyable.The longest track here ("Serendipity" 7.55) is the one that has more than one theme to develop. Pre-coming "Hold the Moment" is the only one to have an "odd" signature (7/8 actually). Record quality is pretty average as well as musicianship...but I liked this album!!!

Not that much really, but I have always been addicted to that Poppy Neo in SHADOWLAND's vein. "The Deafening Silence" can be proud of two wonderful ballads - the title track and 'Stranger in your Heart"(great solo).It also has all elements any Neo- fan needs - purely MARILLIONish lead keyboards (fantastic mini-Moog),rocky PALLAS- like guitar and sounds of laughing children on the background (an unescapable trick in Neo albums ;) ). Recommended mainly to the genre's fans - you won't regret, it's a rare gem!

Look at them now!

Abel Ganz is a band that has always been struggling hard with identity crises. This seems to have been going on throughout their whole career as all of their five studio releases to date have been so different from each other that they could just as well have been done by five different bands! And to a certain extent they were, as members have been coming and going a bit over the years. Even the band's two best albums, 1988's The Dangers Of Strangers and 2008's Shooting Albatross, have very little to do with each other stylistically, which is perhaps not that surprising given the 20 year period between the two. Released in between these albums, The Deafening Silence is also radically different once again, this time for the worst!

In some of my previous reviews of this band's releases I have complained that they have very often sounded anonymous and lacking in identity. The deafening silence is not an exception. The vocalist they found here, Christopher Forsyth, is not really my cup of tea. He reminds me of Joe Lynn Turner! And the compositions here are themselves actually closer to Joe Lynn Turner-era Rainbow and Deep Purple (these bands worst periods) than to Abel Ganz' own previous output! The Deafening Silence is more of a straight ahead (Hard) Rock/AOR record with hardly a trace of Prog in any shape or form. The exception is the eight minute Serendipity that is a Genesis' The Lamb-like song. Not very exciting, though. The melodies are again average at best and the lyrics are banal and consistently unexciting. There are even some downright embarrassing moments to be found here. The bluesy (yes, that's right!) title track is one of them and the cheesy power ballad Stranger In My Heart is another. I don't quite know what they were thinking here.

Looking back at Abel Ganz' entire output makes me feel that they were always a decade behind their own time. I can easily imagine their 1984 debut having been released in 1974, 1988's The Dangers Of Strangers in 1978 and 2008's Shooting Albatross in 1998, and so on. I'm not so sure it would have helped the band's popularity in general though, and the present album in particular does not deserve any appreciation regardless of time! It is remarkable that Abel Ganz returned in 2008 with such a strong album as Shooting Albatross.

The Deafening Silence is only for completionists

With the release of ''The dangers of strangers'' Abel Ganz returned to live performances, having recruited new guitarist Robert Wilson and drummer Colin Johnson, who also happened to be a studio engineer.However the line-up slump still was a major problem for the band.The places of lead singer and keyboardist had to be filled, after Hew Montgomery decided to step down.Christopher Forsyth joined the band as the new singer and Stuart Clyde became the keyboard player, leaving Hugh Carter as the only original Abel Ganz member.This formation recorded the band's fourth studio release ''The deafening silence'', released in 1994 on the French label MSI.

According to the words of Carter, Abel Ganz were dangerously flirting with becoming an average Rock group around the time and his words are pretty much reflected on the sound of the new album.While the Scottish band still retained much of its Neo Prog qualities, that made them a top entry among 80's British Prog bands, the high-pitched voice of the new singer along with the more pompous keyboards lines of Stuart Clyde had added some sort of AOR flashes in the new work.The eponymous ballad with its soft atmosphere, the following ''Hold the moment'' and certain passages in several tracks are like listening to something composed by FOREIGNER or JOURNEY.But there is also the bright side of the album.Montgomery had participated partly in the album's pieces and the recognizable sound of Abel Ganz is still evident in most tracks.Flashy keyboard themes, short-handed GENESIS prog qualities and the quirky and tricky solos along with the omniprsent sense of melodious themes are still based on the 80's British Prog tradition, offering memorable and raw compositions with plenty of energy and passion.Big symphonic synthesizers and grandiose deliveries of rich musical textures are enough to hold the listener's attention, even if not comparable to the best material written by the band.''Serendipity'' and ''Stranger in your heart'' are definitely among the striking and well-crafted efforts of the band and deserve some praise in Abel Ganz'es long repertoire.

The weakest, or better say most inconsistent, of all Abel Ganz early albums yet not weak enough to avoid a recommendation.A couple of tracks are of limited interest even to Neo Prog lovers, the rest of the album though contains signs of the band's 80's evolution with Clyde prooving to be a great keyboardist and Carter managing to keep the new formation together.Recommended.