THE 5TH SEASON

RESISTOR is an American progressive rock band, remember their last opus with this velociraptor eye from 2017. Electric music, acoustic, singular voice that gives cachet, a rough, frustrated group, from the land, from the land that composes songs to make you dance to inventive prog. This is their 6th album fusing modern structures on a classic progressive, crossover background; the instrumentation is recorded as a whole and gives a live feel. RESISTOR to stay true to this sound of three engineers doing the beef at lunchtime during meals, the other guests being able to hear here and there KANSAS, JETHRO TULL with a good dose of heavy American prog-folk bringing them here.

"Winter" soft intro to give voice to Steve, always with his voice oscillating between that of the singer of JETHRO TULL and that of IRON MAIDEN, less on that of FISH now; place for the nervous guitar which takes the place, a bit like in the French JPL, it is prog but above all guitar-prog; it's melodic, evolving, slightly bombastic with the backing vocals. Mid-term and the spleen break, dreamlike latent atmosphere, bass, drums and guitar are given to their heart's content; the final returns to the starting notes with a typical country solo and the jousting of Steve and Fran assisted by a thundering violin, final on RUSH for Steve's voice. "Saint Iris" for a twitter, a transverse flute, Ian must not be far in your memories, the violin confirms your idea; the soft voice comes to pose a story so that the instruments can help you navigate on an arm of Louisane, which brings us to "Seraphim" and this arm that you feel at the start then a melody à la ALAN PARSON PROJECT hits you, the voice and the air brings me back to one of the romantic ballads of the Quebecois MYSTERY, a short folk-prog track to take advantage of the dexterity of the musicians and the wave.

"Cricket Season" for a musical interlude, flute and acoustic guitar for the flight of crickets? , title of appetizer for the second part.

Country-style "Till Spirits Rise", basic rhythmic, violin leading the way, which brings the title to an interesting folk crescendo peering towards the BLUES TRAVELER, on KANSAS of course with this violin, the final rise with the Génésisien air of Inventive 'The Knife' setting fire to the powder; how easy it is to listen to beautiful music. "Aurora" and a hard rock riff to throw the air, an inventive tortured guitar, the other more spleen, repetitive to hypnotize the snake, this velociraptor that slumbers in the meanders of their notes; the narrative voice arrives and the guitar sets off again, the raw sound melancholy, fruity, tinged with bubbles of happiness; break boogie a time and final beef, the one that makes you stay blissful ahead. Already comes "Falling Snow" for the evocation on the guitar of snowflakes falling in front of you, another world as TELEPHONE would have said, moment of pure musical beauty; it goes up, it fills the ears, magical crescendo embellished with overdubs of violin and distant voices, dreamlike post-rock notes à la MONO come to mix, a musical instrumental evoking the purity of the music, what more could you ask for ?

RESISTOR, under the guidance of mentor Steve, is releasing an album of earthy bluegrass music, one of those albums to be listened to with boots at times, with slippers at others as it sends us beyond into the ethereal clouds; RESISTOR does not invent anything but amplifies the level of sparkling notes to a bucolic, diabolical firmament.

It will come as no surprise to anyone to realise this is the fifth album from the American crossover progressive rock band who comprise Steve Unruh (guitars, vocals, violin, flute), Rob Winslow (bass), Barry Farrands (drums, vocals) and Fran Turner (guitars, backing vocals). All songs are credited to all four members apart from "Cricket Season", which features just Unruh and Turner. It starts off gently with flute and acoustic guitars and is somewhat reminiscent of early Genesis before Steve lets his Anderson influences go and some of the tonguing techniques are certainly quite Tull in nature.

When many people see a flute in a prog band they immediately think of Jethro Tull, while a violin will often lead them towards Kansas, but apart from the aforementioned short instrumental (less than two minutes) this is a group are very much standing on their own, with just a few similarities here and there. There are times when I was reminded somewhat of Mike Oldfield, but for the most part this is nice middle of the road lightweight prog with diverse influences combined with an AOR approach which makes it thoroughly enjoyable the first time it is played. Strangely enough, even though this is nicely accessible, the more it is played the more there is to enjoy as the guys have a great feel for the arrangements, and the addition of violin and flute means that it is not noticeable that there are no keyboards whatsoever. I do like that they keep Steve's and Fran's guitars in separate channels all the way through so one knows guitars on the left are Steve and on the right are Fran which allows us to hear more distinctly what each is bringing to the overall sound.

They do rock when the time is right, but very much in an American fashion, and this is another album which fits in solidly with some of the bands comes out of the States in the Nineties and is a very pleasant listen indeed.