WINTERCOAST

It was very hard to rate this album. After all, Touchstone is not your average prog band of the day. Although their sound is hardly original, they do have a unique combination of elements that make their music stand out. It´s not common to see nowadays an english band working with such melodies and in the melodic/hard/heavy rock format. They have excellent hard edged guitar riffs placed together with very fine and subtle keyboards, both very good male and female singers and a strong and tight rhythm section. To top it all, this is a concept album of sorts.

Wintercoast is their second efford and shows quite some improvement when compared to the debut. All the tracks are good and I always hear this CD from start to finish without skipping a single track. Even if the album is long (72 minutes), Touchstone was able to produce a work that has no fillers. The songwriting is definitly one of their strong points together with the fine musicanship of all involved. Kim Seviour´s vocals are more on the forefront this time and this is a plus (although Rob Cuttingham´s pipes are good too). Of course the prog element is present here, but only in small doses so I guess this album will not be of interest for those looking for long suites, explicit displays of virtuosity and anything vaguely ´avant guard´. Still, they do very well what they do, And if you like great melodic songs, good and impassionate perfomances, tasteful arrangements and lots of conviction, you can jump right in!

If PA was a melodic rock or AOR site then Wintercoast would get a 4,5 or even 5 star rating. But for a prog site a 3,5 rating is more fitting.