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Review:
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This promising new Dutch progressive rock formation
is rooted in 1995. In that year schoolboy friends Roland
van der Horst (guitar and vocals) and Joost Hagemeijer (drums
and keyboards) teamed up and started to write their own
compositions. In '98 they released the album Cold World
as a project titled Brainstorm. Two years later singer Eric
Holdtman joined Roland and Joost, but unfortunately left
in 2001 due to personal circumstances. Meanwhile the new
band Mangrove had released their first demo-CD entitled
Massive Hollowness (2001) with bass guitar player Pieter
Drost (who had joined the band earlier that year). Keyboard
parts were played by Joost Hagemeijer and Hans van der Linden.
Soon after the recording sessions Chris Jonker became the
new keyboardist. In this line-up Mangrove released the album
Touch Wood as an own production in 2004, followed by Facing
The Sunset in 2005 (that even got the iO Pages Progaward)
and the 2-CD Coming Back To Live in 2006 (it contains strong
renditions of songs from their 3 studio-albums). The sound
of Mangrove has strong hints of 76-77 Genesis (especially
the keyboards are often in the vein of Tony Banks) and on
every album the bands makes progression. A few years ago
I was lucky to witness Mangrove as the support-act for USA
progrock band Echolyn, for sure they made friends that evening.
So four yours after their previous effort, I was very curious
to this new album, high expectations!
Listening to Beyond Reality I notice how easily Mangrove
switches from a bombastic 24-carat symphonic rock sound
to a more polished and even song-oriented approach. This
reminds me strongly of other Dutch band Kayak (Seventies
sound), for example: a surprising shifting mood from neo-prog
to early Floyd with piano, slide-guitar and Hammond organ
and finally a compelling symphonic rock sound with vintage
keyboards and sensitive guitar in Time Will Tell, from progressive
pop to howling guitar with breathtaking choir-Mellotron
drops and a splendid bombastic grand finale featuring all
symphonic rock elements in the titletrack and from a polished
sound with catchy rhythms to another strong grand finale
with a strongly build-up guitar solo and lush choir-Mellotron
in the final composition Voyager. Mangrove also delivers
a fine ballad entitled Love And Beyond: sensitive guitar
and piano with warm vocals, alternated with a slow rhythm
featuring howling guitar and floods of Hammond organ. But
my best impression of Mangrove is when they are fully playing
in the 24-carat symphonic rock tradition. First the varied
and dynamic, IQ-like instrumental Reality Fades with omnipresent
fat synthesizer flights along delicate classical orchestrations
with moving guitar work, a break with a wonderful Hammond
and Moog sound and a dreamy part with soaring church organ,
what a fantastic composition! Finally (haha) the first track
Daydreamer’s Nightmare, an epic of 15 minutes: it’s layered
with shifting moods, breaks and strong musical ideas, it
contains a captivating tension between dreamy parts with
classical guitar or piano and melancholical vocals and bombastic
parts with heavy keyboards and howling guitar runs, the
colouring with vintage keyboards (Hammond, Moog and Mellotron)
is great and in the end the music culminates into very bombastic
with lush keyboards and sensitive electric guitar, I am
in Prog Heaven and Mangrove in its full splendor! - In my
opinion Mangrove have released their best studio-album:
it sounds very tasteful, melodic and accessible, for those
reasons Beyond Reality will appeal to a wide progrock audience,
a big hand for this promising Dutch progrock band!
www.progwalhalla.com
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