Trollheart

The Pollys are coming!
All will be revealed in

Days...

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A new dawn --- Orion Riders --- 2004 (Lion Music)


I'm always a little dubious, even suspicious of bands who leave such a long gap between releases. There are some obvious exceptions, of course, and I don't expect every band to put out a new album every year, two or even three years, but I do feel that, particularly when it's your debut, leaving seven or more years between albums is asking a lot of whatever fans you have. There is so much good music out there that unless someone's debut really impresses the hell out of you, and you can't wait for the followup, it's going to be hard to maintain the same level of interest in them that you had if you're waiting years and years for their next album.

I say all this of course because this is the full debut of Italian symphonic rockers Orion Riders, and although their Myspace page hosts a new song, and they're arranging a tour at the moment, even if their second album comes out this year, that's going to have been almost eight years between it and the first one, so unless the debut was something totally spectacular, there's a good chance that people who enjoyed it initially may have got fed up waiting and moved on. Strike while the iron's hot, say I, or in this case, the metal, which is even more of an appropriate analogy.

So, was Orion Riders' first album one that made that deep an impression that you would be prepared not only to wait eight years (that's ninety-six months, almost three thousand days) for them to release their second, but to still be interested when it eventually makes it way onto the record shelves, or into itunes, or your favourite download mechanism?

There are only nine tracks on the album, and one of those less than a minute long, while another is just over a minute, so are they starting out on the back foot already? Opener “In memory”, itself short enough at just under three minutes, opens powerfully and cinematically, with strong organ chords and a dramatic vocal from Joe Lombardo, the music flowing into some beautiful piano from the fingers of Tony Zappa, (presumably no relation!) who also plays the drums, oddly. Definitely puts me in mind of “Epica”-era Kamelot, then the band breaks loose for a power rocker with the perhaps inappropriately-titled “Whispers”, steamhammer drumming from Zappa melding with some fine guitar from both Antonello Condorelli and Ricardo Failla, backed up by some orchestral-style keys from Zappa, and some scorching solos from the two guitarists a little later in the song. Lombardo sings his heart out, able to hit the high registers or drop to a subtle murmur with consummate ease. Quite amazing that Tony Zappa can be such a powerful, unrestrained drummer while at the same time exhibiting such delicacy and poise when behind the keyboard.

The title track is up next, and rocks along on the back of a really Malmsteen-esque guitar riff, Lombardo kicking his vocals up a few notches with the effortlessness of a trained opera singer. The song slows down a little way in, to allow something of a contemplative guitar passage, then speeds up and is off away again, charging for the finishing line. “Leave the shades behind” is slower, with some lovely classical guitar and echoey keyboard, but still remaining heavy as the previous tracks. I think the band these guys remind me of most is Nightscape, apart from the close-harmony singing which characterises that band's sound. That's no bad thing, as I love Nightscape's single album.

“Lacrimae angel”, the aforementioned less-than-a-minute-long track is basically a hymn, choral vocals seemingly unaccompanied, then “Light and dark” opens on powerful guitar, bright keyboards leading the song off on a headlong dash which sounds like a charge into battle. Joe Lombardo certainly has no problem making himself heard above the music, but he tends to achieve this by virtue of his voice's natural power and strength, rather than having to shout or scream. Lovely bit of classical piano here courtesy of Zappa, and an impressive vocal performance by Lombardo. Interesting false ending, with wolf howls and then low guitar, then picking it up again as the song moves towards its proper conclusion with guitar fading it out.

Opening with the sounds of traffic as perhaps heard from above, like from a hotel room, “Life's best days” displays signs of being the ballad on the album, with a fragile little piano melody and then string-style keys, Lombardo's hushed, almost sepulchral voice coming in low and gentle as the piano backs him. Drums crash in, and then guitars, and yes, this is the ballad, and it sounds like it's going to be a good one. Twangy guitar gives way to hard riffs and back again, Lombardo's voice getting stronger and more passionate on the chorus, the keys swelling behind him like a full orchestra, great guitar solo rounding out the sound.

“Nocturne” is the other short track, just over a minute and a half, an instrumental (not surprisingly) sounding at once like something out of “Interview with the vampire” and “Tom and Jerry”! Nice little break though, mostly a vehicle for Tony Zappa, both his drumming but mostly his keyboard skills, which are certainly good. Unfortunately it's kind of ruined by some indulgent guitar playing which gets very warped and off-the-wall right at the end, and destroys the atmosphere Zappa has built.

Closer “Old symphony” is also a little confused, certainly at the beginning, but settles down into another power rocker, Lombardo's vocals at first terrible: low in the mix, muddied, almost indistinguishable, but then he sorts them out as the track goes along. Some more nice piano breaks help it on its way, but although it's one of the longer tracks, as a closer it's lacking something, that final push, that spark that makes you really remember the song, and by association the album.

In the end, this is not a bad album, but that's about as far as I would rate it. There are of course tons of symphonic/melodic/dramatic rock and/or metal acts out there, many of whom do this as good as, if not better than, Orion Riders, and I would have to say that, having listened to their album I would not be in a huge hurry to hear more, though I would be interested in a small way. However, I seriously doubt that I would have been prepared to wait eight years for a followup. This being 2012 (for those of you still drunk from the New Year's celebrations!), should they release that followup album this year I may listen to it, but were I reviewing this in 2004 I feel sure I would not be ready to wait as long as fans of this band have had to for another chance to hear the music of Orion Riders.

A new dawn? Perhaps, but the sun has taken one hell of a long time to struggle up into that sky, and I feel the darkness closing in even now...

TRACKLISTING

1. In memory
2. Whispers
3. A new dawn
4. Leave the shades behind
5. Lacrimae angel
6. Light and dark
7. Life's best days
8. Nocturne
9. Old symphony

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Trollheart

In a world of oversensitivity and hyper-political correctness, time to blow all that to hell and get some good old t'n'a going! Look, no matter what we guys say, there are videos we will watch for one reason, and one reason only; no matter how bad the song may be, we're happy. And this is an example of why that is!
Candyman --- Christina Aguilera --- 8 out of 10 on Trollheart's “Way-hay!” scale...

(I have already provided a place where any letters I receive from irate or offended readers can be dealt with..)

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Trollheart

Well, that's what the worm gets for being smart! Forgot all about J, went right to K. Never was good at ABCs... Let's sort that out now. Here's the Jonas Brothers --- kidding! The worm is kidding...

Today's Daily Earworm has been brought to you --- retrospectively --- by the letter J, featuring Jefferson Starship, with “Jane”.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

The Pollys are coming!
All will be revealed in

Days...

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Until we meet the sky --- Solar Fields --- 2011 (Ultimae)


This could be a bit of a gamble for me. Sometimes, as regular readers know, I just take a chance on a name I like, knowing nothing of the artiste involved. This time it appears I've selected an electronica band, in fact, one guy, Magnus Birgersson, who goes under the name of Solar Fields. This is his tenth album, including one videogame score apparently, so he obviously has a following. There's not that much electronic music I like, with Air, Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis being the only real forays I have made into that arena, but I'm sure there's plenty of good music in that genre, and perhaps this is one of them. So let's hit play and see how we go.

Well, it starts almost inaudibly, on a slowly rising synth line that takes over a minute of the nine-plus it runs for before “From the next end” can even be heard as music, the synth droning on into the second minute with the same monotone sound, but other synthy sounds can now be heard faintly in the background, some drifting in and then back out, like breezes that sigh and then fall away, or rising waves on an ocean that as easily recede. I think I can hear a voice in there among all that synthery (hey! There's another new word made up!) but what it's saying or singing is impossible to make out, more like a chant or murmur really. And still the music rises on the same line, going now for the fourth minute, meaning we're almost halfway through and it still sounds like someone tuning up.

Okay, well it's nine minutes and change, so I guess there's still time for something to happen. However, you wouldn't want to be impatient, or checking out a one-minute sample of this track to see if it was worth buying! This gives a whole new meaning to the term slowburner, with the emphasis on slow! Now it's getting louder, more distinct and at five-and-a-half minutes in I can hear for the first time some percussion, which helps define the track a smidge more, but it's really more like a slow heartbeat than any real drumming, and essentially the same melody is carrying on --- if indeed you can call this repeated drone a melody.

Seven minutes now, and I really doubt this is going to suddenly metamorphose into anything. I can see this one long passage going on right to the end. I have to say, for a nine-minute piece of music I am not impressed. I have no idea at all why that had to be so long: there was, to my ears, nothing in it, and yet it stretched out over that interminable length. Why? Is this the way electronic musicians normally approach their music? I sure hope not, but I'm a bit of a virgin in this territory, so I'll just have to wait and see. “Broken radio echo”, a much shorter track, at least introduces a nice piano line, just a run up and down the keyboard really, wouldn't call it a melody, and that droning synth is still in the background, having been carried over in a direct segue from the opening track.

Is this what they call minimalist music? Sounds like the guy's learning how to play piano! He's not, I know that, but it's kind of the same few notes repeated, up and down the scale, an octave higher here, an octave lower there. Then some swirling synth flies past like a rush of wind, and in the same way is gone, leaving the piano playing. And now the track is coming to an end. So that makes a total of nearly thirteen minutes, and I really can't say I've heard any real music. It still all sound like some sort of tuneup or overture, as “Singing machine”, which is seven minutes long, takes the field. With a title like that, can I be foolish to at least expect some proper music?

Well, at first it's all that long drony synth (is that still the same melody carried over from the very start of the album? It seems never to have stopped) with some other little effects coming in here and there, the piano from “Broken radio echo” is back again, but it fades away as quickly, and already we're halfway through the track and I still can't hear any discernible melody. Ambient? Well yeah, I guess so, though I've heard much more together and varied ambient music than this. Maybe it's all meant to make up one big track, but even then, there's not that much variation between even these three pieces. I'm a bit lost, to be honest. The piano is back for a few more notes as the song winds down then it all fades out on spacey synth.

Of course, I shouldn't say it fades, as it really doesn't: it segues, again, directly into “After midnight, they speak”, but it sounds pretty much like the rest of what's gone before. I suppose this would make a great soundtrack for a documentary about exploring deep space or even the ocean, and it is very relaxing and chill-out, but I'm just not hearing anything I can pin down, either as a good or bad track. It really is like one long continuous piece of music, but basically the same all the way through. So far. Oh, there's our friend the piano again, just before the last minute of this shorter track, and again it's only there for a few moments before the synth takes over again as the song ends and merges with “When the worlds collide”.

This at least introduces a new sound, a deeper, doomier synth with tiny flicks on a hi-hat (though it's probably a Linn or something programmed) with a little bass drum beginning to give the music, nearly twenty-five minutes in, something of a recognisable melody and rhythm. Warbly keyboards build up eerily in the background, very 90s new-wave, everything though still funeral-slow. Suddenly, pops, fizzes, and slightly harder drums kick a tiny bit of life into the song, though it maintains its stately, unhurried pace despite this quickening of the basic rhythm. There is a building sense of drama about this track though, and it's the first I'll remember, the first that's made any sort of impression on me, the first on which I've not been waiting --- in vain --- for something to happen.

The longest track (by a few seconds only) is up next, ten minutes of “Dialogue with a river”, which at least opens on bright synth with some bass, and for the first time that long, long, droning synth that accompanied us all the way from the first track seems to have been left behind. There's a deep synth line behind the melody, yes, but it's a different one. There's a sense of nature about this piece, certainly evoking the title, with little hops and skips on the keys and trickling piano putting you in mind of rivers and babbling brooks and streams. A sharp, guitar-like sound cuts across the tune then at the three-minute mark, but rather than do anything spectacular it seems just to fade away again, perhaps as if being carried downriver, out of our range of hearing?

The track has now settled into another slow and measured rhythm, graceful and flowing as the river from which it takes its title, some sounds now like birdsong and water splashing as the heavy synth fades away in the distance but then seems to stage a comeback. Drums cutting in now, perhaps the music is about to take a left turn? Hmm, yes indeed. Bit of a funk groove coming in, with vocals subsumed somewhere in the mix, far far down, and a wailing synth with some other keys coming over the top of it. A blast of feedback guitar, just for a second, and now, unless I'm very wrong and have misjudged this track, we'll have a very slow fade out of a minute to the end of the piece. The drums have dropped away, the effects receded, and we're left with humming synth to wind us down.
(Weirdly, someone has actually uploaded the entire album on Youtube, so here it is!)
For a ten-minute track I guess it wasn't that bad, and the fact that this is all being created by one guy has got to be praised and given proper recognition, but then, Vangelis is one guy, as is Mike Oldfield, and look at the music they produce! Well, maybe I'm missing something; maybe all Birgensson's music isn't like this. Or maybe it is. Anyway, “Forgotten” is a short track, carried on again spacey synthesiser with some bass guitar and, well, more synth. Gets a little brassy there near the end, which is nice. Different certainly, with a somewhat oriental feel about it, then we're into “Night traffic city”, another long one, almost ten minutes itself, just shy.

Starts off with some nice groovy bass anyway, very very low hi-hat or cymbal, synth building again in the background, with a nice little keyboard melody playing over it, some more very buzzy synth, and some nice powerful, almost choral synth chiming in then at the halfway point, building a nice little melody. It certainly is a lot more powerful, driven and forceful than any of what has gone before. In fact, to some degree, “When the worlds collide” and this have marked a seachange in the album, where it's ceased to be one continuous --- and not very interesting, it has to be said --- piece of music, and has now started to diversify into other, more coherent and separate melodies, even songs. It's quite obvious at this point that the album --- in fact I would assume all of Solar Fields' catalogue --- is totally instrumental, with perhaps the odd vocal line here or there, and as such these kind of recordings are always a little hard to review, but even then I usually have more to work with than I have here. It's hard to single out anything as all that different, though this one does veer a little away from the standard theme on the album, standing out a little more.

The piano is back for another few short notes as the piece comes to a close, then rather surprisingly it comes back in, mostly bass piano, it's true, for the intriguingly-titled “Sombrero”, but if I had expected with a title like that this track to be Solar Fields' “Moonshine” --- as in, for the melody and tempo to change dramatically and take a real left turn in terms of style, as on “Tubular Bells II” --- I am sorely disappointed, as the music remains slow, downbeat though with some interesting synth and bass work, and indeed some quite effective short pauses between the runs. Percussion suddely kicks in and the synth and piano get a little more loud and insistent, and there's a definite melody running through this.

This takes us into the last long track, nine minutes of “Last step in vacuum” (you have to wonder where the guy gets titles for these tracks?) which comes in on a slow, moody, deep synth line with other synthy bits going on in and around it, and it sounds like, if the rest of the album is anything to go by, this will be a long drawn-out line that will extend at least a third into the track. And yes, we're now three minutes into the nine and the same basic melody is taking us on into the fourth, though now there is a slight chord change and the synth gets deeper, a real bassy keyboard joining the main synth, then the percussion ramps up slightly and everything gets a bit louder, a deep brassy synth making its voice heard, and then it all kind of fades off towards the closing minute.

The title track then is another direct segue, in a return to the opening style of the album, with essentially the very same melody just carrying on through, percussion playing a slightly more upfront role but the dominant instrument is still that deep booming synth. The track picks up a little speed now, the melody becoming better formed as other keyboard parts come in, the drums leading the charge as a wailing high-end keyboard carries the next part of the melody. For some reason I am at a total loss to explain, this track, the title one, gives a feeling of triumph and victory. I have no idea why, it's just how it comes across to me. I guess there's more in this music than I had realised.

The closer, fittingly titled “Epilogue”, carries the ending theme of “Until we meet the sky” as it fades slowly down on retreating synth, and various little keyboard effects pepper the tune, a bit of that piano coming in and then leaving again, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, there's a huge drumroll, keyboard attack and just as suddenly it stops, and we're left with a slow fadeout to close, ending an extremely enigmatic album.

I couldn't tell you I love this, I couldn't say I hate it, in fact I couldn't even tell you that I understand it. As I say, this is one of my first forays into electronica --- if that's what this is --- so I don't know, maybe all this type of music is this way, and this album is typical of the genre. But it takes a lot of getting used to. I expect my music to start at some point, and this mostly feels like it was more a warm-up, and introduction to a main event that never happened.

That said, I'll admit it's left me with some sort of impression: whether good or bad I don't yet know. But if it's affected me in any way, made me think, made me wonder, I guess it can't all be bad. You know, I may just listen to this through again sometime. Just not right now.

TRACKLISTING

1. From the next end
2. Broken radio echo
3. Singing machine
4. After midnight, they speak
5. When the worlds collide
6. Dialogue with a river
7. Forgotten
8. Sombrero
9. Night traffic city
10. Last step in vacuum
11. Until we meet the sky
12. Epilogue

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Trollheart

Evenin' all, and may I take the hopportunity to wish you all a very 'appy new year. It may seem some time since we prosecuted our first case, but hunfortunately the wheels of justice grind hexceedingly slowly, and so we 'ave only managed recently to secure our second prosecution. It is, 'owever, what one might term a “big fish”, or in this case, three big fishes.

It also hunderscores and 'ighlights the point that we here at SCAM 'ave been trying to get hacross to the criminal fraternity within the music business, and that is that time is no barrier to crime. What other divisions class as “cold cases”, we 'ere at the Serious Crimes Against Music Task Force merely consider “on the back burner,” so to speak, rather like the hunfortunate shepherd's pie my good lady wife asked me to keep an eye on last Sunday, ho ho, bit of police 'umour there.

But to return to the matter at 'and, let me just re-hiterate my warnin' to those of you out there who think you're safe because so much time 'as passed since you perpetrated your 'enious deeds. You are not. If you 'ave commited a crime hagainst music you will be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Neither your money nor your hinfluential friends in 'igh places will save you from a jail cell. Let the 'eadlines below speak for themselves, and be warned, more harrests will most certainly follow, in the fullness of time.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Ah, back on track after yesterday's little “alphabetic malfunction”. Not the worm's favourite band, but he's always had a soft spot for this song...

Today's Daily Earworm was brought to you by the letter L (L comes after K, yes?) with Level 42, and “It's over”.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018