Originally Posted in Racing the Clouds Home, December 6 2016
Evership – Evership – 2016
I'm always just a little wary of bands using the word “ever” in their name. There are so many – Evertale, Everfriend, Evergrey, Everon, Everwood, Everflame .. the list goes on. It seems to be one of the most popular prefixes for prog and power metal bands, conjuring up images of sword-and-sorcery, mythology and fantastic creatures. Reading up on this one however, there seems to be a pretty lavish history behind it, with composer and multi-instrumentalist Shane Atkinson having made music mostly his life during the eighties and nineties, then dropped it to concentrate on software production, at which he found himself extremely talented. The music in his head however, he says, haunted him during his success and he knew he had to get it out to the world. So making some major lifestyle changes and building his own recording studio, and indeed creating a company to finance his debut album, the Evership project was born. Ten years and more in the making, it's a little odd that the article on ProgArchives speaks of his hope that the album might be released in 2017, and yet here it is on their list, so I can only assume it made it ahead of time. Oh, I see they're talking about the vinyl album; the digital release has already hit.
In typical prog fashion, this debut album only has six tracks, with three of them broken up into suites. Even so, that's still just short of one hour of music altogether. We open on “Silver light”, with a rising guitar and orchestral sound, almost, but not quite, like an orchestra tuning up, and this stretches on for almost a minute before what I think may be theremin comes into the mix (though with the amount of instruments played here, including something that's called “experimental guitar” I could very well be wrong!) and then the vocal comes in. This really grabs your attention, a high, powerful mix of Benoit David and Justin Hayward as Beau West takes control of the song, which begins to rock under the powerful guitar riffs and insistent percussion. Apart from Atkinson and his brother, the latter of whom plays most of the guitars, there are two other guitarists here, and a full choir, so it's quite the wall of sound with yet a kind of progressive metal feel.
The opener itself is over nine minutes long, but never seems to drag, and is full of clever musical ideas, as you would probably expect from someone who has composed for film and TV for most of his life, some very seventies-sounding melodies which recall the best of Genesis and Yes, with lovely violin from Nicelle Preibe adding to the overall sonic mosaic being woven here. The next track is one of those multi-part suites, but as there are no timings shown it may be hard to know where one part ends and the next begins. The overall thing is called “A slow descent into reality”, and opens on quite Jonathan Cainesque piano, certainly more what I would call AOR than prog, but then Atkinson doesn't claim to play prog necessarily, just music he likes. After what I take to be the sound of a car crashing (Spock's Beard on
Octane?) we get a more ripply piano more or less solo with the vocal, then some a good thick synth line as the vocal continues in a slightly softer vein before the keys run off on their own.
I definitely get flavours of Sean Filkins' solo album here, especially in the female backing vocals and the narrative of the song. About halfway through now and a big meaty synth line takes over before acoustic guitar joins in and the vocal returns; very Yes this, I feel. Powerful stuff. The choir adds its voice now as we head into the eighth minute and then a kind of Rushesque (circa
2112 or
Hemispheres) guitar instrumental section followed by a real workout on the organ. Everything stops completely at just over the tenth minute mark as West screams
”There must be something beyond!” introducing another extended instrumental, which really allows Shane Atkinson to show what he can do on the drumkit. And so we move into the
denouement of the piece, and it all fades away, after all that, very quietly and simply.
“Evermore” reminds me of nothing more than the very best of Tony Banks, especially on his solo album
A Curious Feeling, and is another long track, just over ten minutes but this time only broken into two. It begins with an extended instrumental which breaks down into a single piano line as West comes in with the vocal, Josh Groban-like, very gentle but strong at the same time. Nice backing vocals too, possibly the choir although I don't think so somehow. Around the fourth minute it kicks up a gear, hard electric guitar coming in and rocking the whole thing, joined by keyboards. Sounds like my favourite, mandolin, in the seventh minute, though in general I would have to say I'm not as impressed with this as I was with the first two tracks. It's good, but somehow it just isn't quite grabbing me in the same way the other two did. “Utima thule” is also ten minutes plus, and it opens with a nice acoustic guitar with some ambient sounds, the vocal gentle and relaxed behind a peaceful piano line. Quite pastoral, and definitely the closest this album has so far come to a ballad, though with a length of ten minutes I guess it could easily change. And it looks like it's about to, as hammering percussion pulls in electric guitar and the pace is picked up.
Here's where the choir really shines, laying down a sumptuous vocal backdrop against which Atkinson plays some serious keyboard flurries before it all settles down again and Ncelle's violin takes us to the conclusion, and into the last, and longest, track we go. It's another multi-part suite, which goes under the umbrella title of “Flying machine”, and runs for just shy of fourteen minutes. A nice rippling guitar and keyboard line get us started, with angelic vocal harmonies coming in to supplement Beau West's singing, slight touches of folk about the melody. More serene violin and what sounds like uileann pipes (though none are credited; could it be the theremin?) then things begin to get more intense as we move into the fourth minute, the choir blasting out before we head into I guess the second of the three parts of the suite, opening with birdsong and muted voices and effects, distant violin and then louder, darker voices. A rising guitar pulls us in and then it's a building instrumental section up to the seventh minute, when it briefly explodes as West asks
”Are you sure it won't fall down?”, immediately followed by a soft guitar line and then expanding on the sung line and developing the theme on electric guitar with a rocky feel to it. We're now in the eighth minute.
Things slow down now on a kind of melancholy line, a certain sense of The Alan Parsons Project detectable in the melody, at least to me, and then it takes off again like the machine in the title, soaring and swooping through various instrumental passages as it heads towards its eventual conclusion. That leaves us with by far the shortest track on the album to close with, less than two minutes of the oddly-named “Approach”. Surely such a track would have been better at the beginning of the album rather than the end? As it happens, it's noting more than a sound effect really, synth or guitar feedback setting up the impression of something, well, approaching. A little disappointing to say the least.
TRACK LISTING
1. Silver light
2. A slow descent into reality
(i) Everyman
(ii) A slow descent
(iii) Wisdom of the ages
(iv) Honest with me
(v) The battle within
(vi) Anyman
3. Evermore
(i) Eros
(ii) Agape
4. Ultima Thule
5. Flying machine
(i) Dreamcarriers
(ii) Dream sequence
(iii) Lift
6. Approach
I suppose I had expected, given all I've read about this guy, to be more impressed than I have been. It's a decent album and there are some really good ideas in it, and for a debut it is pretty good. I just didn't find myself blown away by it. Perhaps it's the old first-time-listen syndrome, and it will grow on me with repeated listens. If I decided to repeat the experience.
Still, a very competent album and on the strength of what's here, and given what Atkinson has sacrificed to be where he is today, I'd say it deserves its place just outside the top twenty. Definitely worth a listen. More than that? I really can't say at this time.