LIVE AT HIGH VOLTAGE 2011

Mostly Autumn is a British progressive rock band producing music that is heavily influenced by the classic 70's era. They have built their reputation through a constant career with many solid albums and constant tourings, never signing to a major record label. The band's early influences were Genesis, Renaissance, Deep Purple and especially Pink Floyd and the Celtic music. Later albums also include more contemporary progressive influences. Beyond the traditional rock musical instruments, the sound of Mostly Autumn incorporates many folk musical instruments like flutes, Celtic bodhran, whistles, Uilleann pipes, violins and powerful vocal harmonies, creating a sound really interesting to hear.

Mostly Autumn saw their origins in the mind of Bryan Josh in the early of 1990, but it didn't come to action until 1998. That was the year that he recruited Heather Findlay, Ian Jennings, Liam Davison, Angela Goldthorpe, Jonathan Blackmore and Andy Smith, to create a very solid line up of Mostly Autumn for the beginning of their musical career.

"Live At High Voltage 2011" is the thirteenth live album of Mostly Autumn and that was released in 2011. High Voltage is a music festival held in Victoria Park, London. This musical event hosts artists from various strands of rock music, including classic rock, progressive rock and heavy metal. The first festival was held on the 24 and 25 July 2010. The second took place on the 23 and 24 July 2011, the time where the recordings of "Live At High Voltage 2011" were taken.

High Voltage is a very good interesting rock festival with the presence of many great bands. I'm just naming the bands more connected to prog rock music. In 2010 took part Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Opeth, Transatlantic, Asia, Zappa Plays Zappa, Bigelf, Focus, Pendragon, Touchstone, Marillion, Argent, Uriah Heep, Magnum, Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash, Steve Hackett and The Reasoning. In 2011 we had Queensryche, Dream Theater, John Lee's Barclay James Harvest, Neal Morse, Anathema, Caravan, Amplifier, Von Hertzen Brothers, Jethro Tull, Spock's Beard, Mostly Autumn, Curved Air, The Enid and Pallas. As we can see, this is a very impressive set of band's names of our progressive rock world.

The line up on "Live At High Voltage 2011" is Olivia Sparnenn (lead vocals and tambourine), Anne-Marie Helder (backing vocals, flutes, keyboards and acoustic guitars), Bryan Josh (lead vocals, lead and backing guitars and acoustic guitars), Liam Davison (backing vocals electric and acoustic guitars), Iain Jennings (keyboards, piano and Hammond organ), Andy Smith (bass guitars) and Gavin Griffiths (drums).

"Live At High Voltage 2011" is a double live album. The first CD has six tracks, "Distant Train" from "Passengers", "Answer The Question" also from "Passengers", "Evergreen" from "The Spirit Of Autumn Past", "Deep In Borrowdale" from "Go Well Diamond Heart", "Questioning Eyes" that isn't from Mostly Autumnn but belongs to Breathing Space and "Heroes Never Die" from "For All We Shared". The second CD doesn't own any tracks but only features an interview and some never seen before photographs of the band as well as backstage footage of the High Voltage festival of 2011.

The live set features a mix of material old and new, though unsurprisingly it leant heavily on the most recent "Go Well Diamond Heart" album, the first to feature Sparnenn's lead vocals. Josh, whose vocals somehow sound more emotive live than they do on studio proved gently spoken and clearly boast a poetic sensibility when it comes to music and lyrics and his emotive Gilmour-esque guitar style is central to Mostly Autumn's music. A word of praise should also go to Anne-Marie Helder, who when she's not behind her keyboards contributing with backing vocals, switches to the flute and she adds decidedly a kind of a Jethro Tull's flavour to the likes of "Caught In A Fold" and "The Spirit Of Autumn Past: Part 2". The instrumental "Distant Train" kicked things off, a prime example of the band's multi layered epic sound. Olivia Sparnenn entered the stage as the instrumental segued to sing "Answer The Question". Her voice has a pure, ethereal quality that meshes well with the band's soundscapes. Despite being relatively new to the role, her stage presence was that of a confident front woman at ease in the spotlight. Highlights include the new song, at the time, "Deep In Borrowdale" that begins with a haunting piano intro from Iain Jennings. It slowly builds to a crescendo where Olivia really let rip vocally. Finally, the fan favourite's "Evergreen", which received the loudest cheers of this live show.

Conclusion: There is something wholly admirable about Mostly Autumn. They always had self financed their live tours and album releases and they always attracted a diehard and selected base of fans. "Live At High Voltage 2011" is a very special live album in band's discography. This is a live album recorded in a live festival. So, the people present aren't properly composed by their fan base. So, I think that is a very difficult thing to a band play in a place like that. Thus, I think "Live At High Voltage 2011" suffers from that problem. Despite Mostly Autumn are an incredible bunch of great musicians that rarely disappoint us, on this live album their live performance is a bit lower than is usual. By the other hand, the sound is lower in quality. So, rather this one, I prefer to recommend their live albums "Live 2009 ? Part I & II", "That Night In Leamington" and "Still Beautiful ? Live 2011", that show very well how great this band can be when live.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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