DEEP SPACE

BAND OF RAIN began as the one man project of Chris Gill from England. There's quite the story about him in the bio here and the man continues to release albums as he has eight so far including his most recent from 2021. "Deep Space" is his debut from 2004 and here is a guy who takes pride in his album covers. Thankyou!

Chris began as a bass player before turning to guitar then after getting into a car accident and having both hands broken he turned to synths. So the man can play all these instruments very well but it's the drums that are lacking here but not enough for me to not give this 4 stars. I just love the sound here. So much depth, layers of sound which I like and we do get some guest vocals but like most psychedelia he sort of mumbles along(haha). Guest flute as well on one track otherwise this is all Chris and what a job he did. I'm not normally into the "do it your self" musicians stuff but we have a winner here.

This is a long one at just under 69 minutes and we get 13 tracks and I have a top five to talk about. There are no weak tracks by the way or songs that make me cringe even a little bit thankfully. The opener "Cloudburst" sets the tone and although it's just outside of my top five I need to mention it. I dig those contrasts where we get this spacey sound which is overwelmed by some heaviness led by the guitar. "War And Peace" with those deep bass lines, keys and riffs really get me going especially how surprisingly heavy it is 4 minutes in. Oh my!

"Criggion" is so spacey with beats coming half way through. The title track has some cool contrasts and lots of synths. Powerful at times and the guitar makes some noise 1 1/2 minutes in. The final two songs "Castle Walls" and "Svengali" round out my top five. The closer is so uplifting to start as vocal melodies join in. I noticed Chris has an album called Svengali so he clearly is influenced by him and a fan.

Well I'm a fan of BAND OF RAIN even if this is the only record I have by them. It's been a fun week listening to this one, it's all about that spacey and drifting sound with those guitar leads and the depth of sound as well. Great album! I can't believe Chris played with Lol Coxhill and his band back in the day.