SUFFOCATING THE BLOOM

Suffocating The Bloom is one of the most beloved 90s prog albums but I've never cottoned to that opinion. To get the elephant in the room ejected, I must state that their love of all things Gentle Giant is the biggest mark gainst them to me, never being a fan of GG and their busy multi vocal workouts. So, trying to place that aside I decided to review the album on just the first 4 songs as anymore would just be repition. Especially when it comes to the album's 20 plus minute closing suite.

The lead off track "21" is a toned down affair with gentle acoustic guitar strums and keyboard strings. It reminds me of a ballad that Kansas would do. But do much better. It's also very atypical to the rest of the songs on the album. "Winterthru" seems to be an ode to the Christmas season, if not the holiday itself. It has pleasant melodies and a very Renaissance Novella era verse and vocals. Filled with all manor of chimes and bells, it's quite busy enough but sent over the edge by the song's bombastic chorus. This is where the drumming of Paul Ramsey goes ballistic and almost over powers the music. Some restraint would have been welcome but that word doesn't seem to be in this drummer's vocabulary. This would be a trademark throughout the album. "Reaping The Harvest" starts out mellow enough but it's bombastic chorus now the feature the GG style multi lead and counter vocals. Busy enough in itself if the drummer didn't think that every faster paced chorus and instrumental break was a competition with ELP's "Karnevil 9". Even ELP knew when to lay low. Remember "Lucky Man". And that goes for the rest of this group too. The following track "In The Garden" starts off with a long synthersizer string piece that's quite boring. I'm not sure what purpose it serves the song. The song changes into a faster paced multi vocal workout over a jazzy melody and rhythm before exploding into more over played choruses and instrumental breaks. And more over playing from, you guessed it, the drummer.

Having listened to this album a few times, I could repeat the same criticisms on the rest of the songs, but that would be academic. "Suffocating The Bloom" is well recorded and well played, but an outside producer was needed to reign in a lot of the endless bombast and constant overplaying. And give the drummer a Valium.

There's nothing wrong with prog musicians taking inspiration from their heroes, be they Gentle Giant, Yes, KC or who ever, but some restraint would have resulted in Echolyn suffocating the bloom instead of suffocating the music. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.