ATHELSTONE

"The Quiet Before the Storm" Following an ominous introduction, the quiet truly takes hold, with gentle guitar and soft percussion. As it gains momentum, it develops a post rock wash. From there, it's jazz music with an especially inspired bass performance, while lead guitar and a warbling electric take turns. None of this more elegant playing keeps Athelstone from flexing their cacophonic muscle, however, including a ringing mandolin in the more fluid passages.

"Jaaz" Jazz solo guitar opens the shortest of the three tracks. One could be fooled into thinking Astrud Gilberto was guesting here. I mean, the music here is just velvety smooth and fuses Bossa Nova with more contemporary jazz chord progressions- even though that unruly ailing guitar makes a brief interruption.

"Coming Full Circle" Infusing electronic elements into the blend of heavy jazz fusion they've already explores, this piece fortunately maintains the stellar bass performance one should come to expect by this point. The piece also introduces Mellotron and a vocal performance not unlike the quieter moments of Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky." Rounding out their truly eclectic nature, they take a more symphonic approach while spicing it up with pummeling guitars.

The pieces are arranged well in terms of structure, beginning with unusual atmospherics that transported me into an airport, waiting for a plane where sounds fade out over time and become drones as the planes come and go, and the boredom sets in of delayed flights. I related to this and really enjoyed the way the music builds in volume and intensity as waves of keyboards wash over cascading down in a beautiful soundscape. The music spirals and swirls, melted and tangled together by the guitars of Daniel Cassar, the bass of Ryan Vella Bonello, the cello of Rachel Attard Portughes, the drums of Matthew Vella and a myriad of dissonant sounds.

'Jaaz' opens with stripped back acoustic jazz in an improvised laid back style. It is joined by swinging percussion; very relaxing and feels like you are sitting in a jazz club sinking back a few margaritas. The cool scat vocals by Dana McKeon further augment this mood. Suddenly things get out of control as the guitars distort and contort and the drums become frenetic waking you up with a jolt. It settles into a heavy guitar riff and then it dies again into the smooth jazz sounds. The saxophone of Fabian Bonello has a nice tone along with those dirty guitar drones. There is another tantrum of noise before it ends with the guitars and sax battling for supremacy.

Finally we wind up back in another epic 'Coming Full Circle'. Ambient atmospherics are heard over swells of keyboards played by Daniel Cassar. This time it sounds like we are in a train station; perhaps the metaphor of waiting is here too. The music builds with an effective drone and some fast guitar rhythms. There is peace and a lonely acoustic vibration is heard playing a jazz melody. The mellotron sounds lovely by Matthew Vella, and it has a nice percussion tempo. There is a scorching sax solo that comes in at 11 and a half minutes, along with shimmering Hammond. The effects of children playing echoes eerily as violining guitar and a resonating percussion emanates; a stunning passage of music. A heavy guitar riff locks in and some nice vibraphone and harmonics. The music switches to a heavy polyphonic riff and some spacey synth washes.

The cello joins the landscape and then it builds to a crescendo ascending to a droning guitar ringing out. The sound is a psychedelicacy of simmering feedback in a sonic cauldron. When all goes quiet a measured percussion begins and some glissando space rock guitar echoes into the night. It is reminiscent of early Pink Floyd in their spaciest mood. This is a lengthy piece of immersive music but undoubtedly the highlight of 'The Quiet Before The Storm'. The album takes a few listens to grab your ear but overall this is an atmospheric and compelling album with a lot of variation of style.

A colorful and challenging first track is offered with 'The Quiet before the Storm', whose 23 minutes show the quality of these musicians as composers and of course as performers. The music is instrumental here, so we have a lot to imagine while the seconds/minutes pass. The band brings several changes and a lot of nuances that produce a diversity of textures and emotions; I like how the music is progressing little by little, because the first minutes are slow and careful, but later the guitar produces a rockier sound so drums and bass follow it and make more intense music for some minutes until it slows down and becomes relaxing. As you can imagine, it is only a short passage because later they give us a new powerful moment, which again, is shared for a minute or two until it changes and becomes calmer. These changes in moments become predictable, so there are some passages that I would have enlarged a bit more, in order to create a more solid track, which overall, is a pretty good one.

'Jaaz' starts with cadence and a slow rhythm, after one minute drums and bass enter, accompanying the guitar and making a clear (as the title suggests) jazzy mood. A couple of minutes later a female voice appears creating a bossa-nova style sound. This lasts four minutes until they all of a sudden surprise us and create a heavy rock sound with powerful guitars, heavy drums and a sound full of energy reminiscent of some 70s rock acts. After five minutes the sax enters but in a delicate way, and seconds later it explodes when the sound becomes crazier. The last seconds are calmer and with the bossa nova style.

And finally 'Coming Full Circle' with other 23 minutes of a carousel of sounds. This is my favorite track, the one I believe is the best composition and the one with most audacity and dynamism. Since the first minutes I felt the connection and I was attracted by the sound, by that musical expression that let our imagination fly. The use of acoustic guitar along with female voice (wordless) and the synth produce a very relaxing atmosphere, calm and beautiful, excellent for a good read or write. Some minutes later the music changes becoming more intense and with a combination of heavy prog with some space rock hints, which is pretty cool. Later it becomes even heavier, but this is not my favorite part. The carousel continues with some highs and lows until it reaches a climax at minute 15 with an excellent hypnotizing guitar that is greatly complemented by the other instruments, creating a chaos and a nervous sound, this is probably my fav part of the whole album. The song finishes with a calm style.

And with it, the album ends. Overall is a good album, with some excellent moments and some average ones; the band has talent without a doubt, but I believe they can even do better. My final grade will be 3 stars.

Enjoy it!

A couple of music sites rather misleadingly describe this outfit as belonging to the progressive metal family of artists, but don't be fooled by this, for this is a truly eclectic effort, with musical moods and influences from far more than bog standard metal. Indeed, the title track, at over twenty two minutes long, veers from some intense psych rock a la Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets to Meddle era, to some lovely early Genesis type symphonic rock, before closing in a far harder vein with passages very much inspired by latter day Crimson, or even the type of music Dream Theater would be pleased to put out, featuring some pounding bass and intense riffs.

There are only three tracks on this work, but with two clocking in at over twenty minutes long, you certainly get a lot of listening here, and, in fact, I personally would have preferred to have seen things broken up a bit into slightly shorter segments. The second track, and the shortest, Jaaz runs to a little over eight minutes long, and as its name implies, this is a laid back, jazzy effort, and is pleasant listening on a sunny Spring evening without ever being overly challenging. If you are a fan of meandering, lyric-less, female vocals, then you will enjoy Dana McKeon's contribution here. This track, in fact, is a sure fire certainty for inclusion on our sister site, Jazz Music Archives, until, half way through, we get a break from the ambience into a Frippesque outburst. The onset of the saxophone backing this provides us with a glimpse of how the early seventies Crimson lineup might have sounded had they still been together.

The final track, Coming Full Circle, is the longest at over twenty three minutes duration. It has a lovely ambient feel to it at the start, with birdsong and effects, and a dreamy guitar lead backed by more jazzy rhythm, sedating the mind. As with the opener, the moods change starkly, from ambient to psych, to pure Crimson, to downright metal, but, I feel, with very little direction or purpose, almost as if the personnel have locked themselves away for a while and produced what is, in effect, an extended jam session committed to disc. It should, though, be stressed that it is all extremely well performed and also very well produced. The guitar screams at thirteen minutes in are particularly haunting.

It's just, for me, the crucial test for a mainly instrumental piece is whether it manages to tell a coherent story in the absence of lyrics, and this one, I'm afraid, fails that test quite strongly.

Three stars for this. A good album, but not one that will set the world alight, and very non-essential. Less is, I feel, sometimes more, and this band would benefit from this for future works.