BOOK OF HOURS

Willowglass produces some lovely music with great sound, instrumentation, and overall production. Andrew Marshall blends acoustic and electric instruments masterfully, and plays them very well I might add. What prevents this album from being more than just "good", however, is the composition. Take "The Labyrinth", the albums fine closer. This piece begins beautifully featuring acoustic guitar. I'm thinking we could have something great here. But then, things start to repeat themselves a bit, and later in the track there is a synth solo that I don't really connect with, and, as with other tracks, the music is just a little too repetitive, without a whole lot in the way of chord changes or variation. This is why the album is not in the territory of something like Anthony Phillips' "The Geese and the Ghost". Now if one could mix the beauty and feel of Willowglass with the compositional density of, say, Anglagard or Cirrus Bay, I think we'd have a masterpiece. Still, this is a very nice album throughout, with beautiful artwork and packaging (as good as any I've ever seen), to lend to a very nice listening experience. So, although the music is typically quite "safe", even slightly "new age", in my opinion, it is also pretty and pleasant, and on occasion, even haunting.