HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The previous effort entitled Gentry of this Canadian band still sounds very pleasant to me because of the wonderful early Marillion inspired atmospheres and the lush Mellotron sound. But the guitarplayer has left and that is one of the first facts I notice listening to Human Trafficking: although the guitar player did a decent job on keyboards, I miss the omnipresent Mellotron waves from Gentry, this was an extra dimension for me. The new album contains two long and two short tracks, the total running time is around 45 minutes, not very long for a CD because usually it's between 70 and 80 minutes. The two long compositions are simply structured but sound very tasteful, from dreamy to compelling and bombastic with frequent sensitive guitar soli, loaded with howling runs (obviously inpspired by Steve Rothery but also with hints from Gilmour and Latimer, they all prefer 'emotion' above 'scale-acrobatics'). Remarkable in the song Regrets is the more prominent role of the keyboards, especially the violin-Mellotron along fluent synthesizer flights. Just like the other long track, this song contains a very compelling final part with very emotional guitar work, goose bumps! The first short track sounds like Ice by Camel because of the warm combination of tender paino play and sensitive electric guitar but the Steve Rothery fans will also be delighted about this wonderful piece, what an emotion. The final song is Loving Child, it starts with acoustic rhythm-guitar and pleasant, a bit melancholic vocals, then a delicate colouring by a wonderful strings-sound, it ends with a fragile guitar solo, accompanied by soaring keyboards, quite laidback. Although I have missed the keyboard player, I conclude that this is a very beautiful CD, recommended to all neo-prog fans, especially to the early Marillion freaks!