GLASS SHADOWS

Take the opening number for instance. "Fireside" starts as one of their most folkish ones, and ends up almost as a hard (even heavy) rock tune. I can understand that the band was willing to move away from their Floyd sound, but hey! That's maybe not what their fans were expecting. I know the story: a band needs top evolve etc. But it seems that lots of bands seems to feel obliged to go into a harder direction (Porcupine Tree and Fish to name a few).

I far much prefer "The Second Hand" which is a more "Mostly Autumn" song featuring sweet vocals from Bryan Josh as well as a fine acoustic guitar solo. Maybe not extremely original, but a pleasant song.

What I mainly lack, are the splendid vocal harmonies we were used to. The exchange between Josh and Heather. At times, they were very close to perfection (if not reached), but on this album they definitely don't achieved this.

Gone are the superb and inspired guitar solo; unfortunately. Again, they used to sound pretty close to Gilmour's ones and maybe that Josh wanted to step away from the comparison. But I'm not even sure that this was totally intentional.

The well titled "Unoriginal Song" (I don't decide about the titles.) only confirms this. I'm specially disappointed with Heather's vocals here. And if you have ever some other MA reviews of mine, you know I usually praise her.

This album is rather boring so far, I must say. And I'm afraid that "Paper Angels" doesn't change the mood. Although, for the very first time, Josh is displaying a great guitar break like we all love. But twenty seconds is a rather short affair. Isn't it? Same apply to the longer "Tearing At The Faerytale".

In terms of brilliant composition, there is hardly only one to be mentioned. The title track of course. A wonderful crescendo type of song, even if I would have liked a bit more presence from Heather. The dramatic mood, the great guitar: it's all there. At last I would say.

Still, one great song (even if it clocks at over eleven minutes) is not enough to make a great album. I situate this effort between the two and the three star mark. The closing number being one of the poorest of the whole.

I'll be generous and upgrade this one to three stars. Thanks to the title track, I guess. But where is Heather???

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