ROAD TO DARKNESS

The ink of the print of ''The master and the monkey'' hadn't even dried, when Gandalf's Fist decided to release their second album.''Road to darkness'' was written, recorded and released in a period of six months, the actual date of launching was July 1st, 2011.It was a thematic concept, based on a song Dean Marsh wrote a few years back and led to a spacey storytelling/adaption of ''The Wizard of Oz'', refering for the case to a girl transported to a world of aliens.The music was completely written by Marsh, while the lyrics were split between Marsh and Luke Severn.

The English duo took a turn with this album, facing basically the old PINK FLOYD stylings and building their sound on the principles of the legendary British Psych/Space Rock band.''Road to darkness'' is a much more focused work with no surprising stylistical twists, it's a fairly Psychedelic/Space Rock album with some resemblances to MAGUS, characterized by the intensity of the lyrical content, the slow tempos and the melancholic guitar solos.The music comes as an amalgam of electronic textures, GILMOUR-ish soloing and atmospheric guitar/keyboard instrumental parts with a doomy sound, however the use of effects and the instrumental distortions classify this one as a quite modern-sounding effort.Vocals are the low point, far from clean, featuring an odd raspy accent at moments.So, the true value of the album is mainly based on the musical content, which is pretty cool, albeit far from original.The mix of strange ambiences, guitar sounds and electronic vibes, which pop up here and there throughout the album, remind me also of Italians DAAL.But the overall mood is heavily FLOYD-ian, the slow rhythms, the sensitive voices, the spacey soloing on guitars and the atmospheric synths complete series of emotional soundscapes.''Untrodden ways'' is the only track, retaining some of the rural tension of the previous release with the display of recorders and the strong acoustic enviroment.

Second work by Gandalf's Fist, fairly following the 72'-77' PINK FLOYD era.Good Psychedelic/Space Rock with a few experimental switches to Electronic Music.Pretty fine and recommended effort.