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Review:
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Lee Abraham, was, as many of you know, the bass player
in Galahad for a while, before someone noticed and now he
isn't. He has also released a couple of solo albums before
this one, one of which, View From The Bridge we reviewed
in Silhobbit a few years back.***
Yet again Lee has assembled a "who's who" of Southern
Proggers to guest on his album, including Dean Baker (Galahad),
John Mitchell (It Bites, Arena, Frost, The Urbane), Jem
Godfrey (Frost), Gary Chandler (Jadis), Simon Godfrey (Tinyfish),
Steve Thorne (Steve Thorne), Simon Nixon (Neptune's Sofa),
Sean Filkins (ex-Big Big Train) and Gerard Mulligan.***
The album starts off with the atmospheric piece And
Speaking Of Which, Lee playing keyboards and guitars over
a Gerard Mulligan drum loop. Then Face The Crowd kicks in,
much harder with chucky guitars and heavier drums from Mulligan,
along with piano by Dean Baker. Sean Filkins provides the
powerful vocals on this 6 minuter, and John Mitchell chimes
in with a thunderous solo towards the end. Heavy song son!***
The Mirror starts by taking the volume down a peg.
Or three. This seemingly pleasant, yet sinister track features
a great vocal from Simon Godfrey along with a contribution
from brother Jem and excellent guitaring from Lexrst. The
eight minutes of this seem to fly by! The following track,
Celebrity Status, sees the return of Gary Chandler to the
microphone. The lyrics biting at the heals of today's Celeb
Culture, where people are famous for what? "But what is
it you're good at?" he sings. And what better time would
it have been to release this as a single, what with the
final Celebrity Big Brother more like a "Who's That?" than
anything else! With the "power of the internet" and its
millions of websites, chat magazines and pointless TV channels
to fill, getting famous has never been easier. All you have
to do is sleep with a minor celeb (or get your tits out)
and you're on the gravy train! But in 5 years time, when
everyone is famous, then what?***
So, after 25 minutes we've reached the supposed penultimate
track! Luckily for us, the next couple, Black and White
take up around 32 minutes! You gotta luv prog, innit! Anyway,
Black is 14 minutes of heavy stomping prog, alongside more
quieter, reflective moments. Another fine vocal performance
from Sean Filkins. This leads into the 17 minute monster
that they've called White. Heavy one minute, bombastic the
next, but hold on, there's sweet and charming coming round
the corner too! Stevie Thorne lends his fine lungs to this
song, and the interaction between his and Sean's backing
vocals gives parts of the track an It Bites feel. It seems
to end several times, and indeed it does, but only to start
on the hidded track Simple Song right at the end. Which
is a nice and calm way to close the album.***
(Charlie
O'Mara) From "Silhobbit.com"
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