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JPT SCARE ANTHONY MOORE SYMPHONY X BAND
ANTHONY MOORE - "Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom" / "Secrets of the Blue Bag"
This CD emanates from 1971, the year before Moore's band Slapp Happy was formed and is part of a trilogy conceived in Germany in the early 1970s. The mantra 'JamJemJimJomJum' is apparently a musical palindrome that takes over 20 minutes to complete before landing again at precisely the same point the three vocalists, Ulf Kenklies, Glyn Davenport and Gieske Hof-Helmers started at. (This is pretty hard going as you can hear from the nervous laughter coming in near the end.) There are two other equally hypnotic pieces although the second has some rather jarring scraped string noises (Take those away and this would be a nice piece but that might be the missing the point the artist was making) The one I liked best was 'ABCD Gol'fish' with its 'jangly' eastern sounding hi-hat ('Zappa' Diermeier) and harpsichord sound. It reminded me a bit of the sequence at the beginning of The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again' (or maybe this music's has 'befuddled my brain' as Gary Brooker would say!) 'Secrets of the Blue Bag', also from 1971, is apparently concerned with the 120 different combinations of the first five notes of the diatonic scale and is a homage to the coding/ decoding engines of early computer history and also to Raymond Lully the 13th century inventor of the rotating encryption device. (Blue bag being a Chinese expression for the universe) That's not as bad as it sounds as Moore ingenuously 'combines and recombines' with the help of different instrumentation and voices. It's a pity no information is given on exactly how this was achieved. While 'Pieces' could fulfil a role as meditative, even 'New Age' music, 'Secrets' main appeal may well be to music students rather than musical listeners. Intriguing! Thanks to Simon of 'New Horizons' for supplying the names of the musicians on 'Pieces' (See www.voiceprint.co.uk ) Buy online for £13.14 (Blue Print BP327CD, BP328CD) (Phil JACKSON) musician and reviewer, Paradox One
SYMPHONY X - "V (The New Mythology Suite)"
Having only ever heard Symphony X on a sampler of their career to date ('Behind The Masks'). I described the band back then (AD #23) as 'standard heavy metal music' invoking Rush and Threshold. Our own Roland Roque in AD #21 had already reviewed 'Twilight in Olympus' very positively with comparisons to the likes of Dream Theater and Rainbow. I got quite a shock when a friend played me this album on hearing just how far this band had advanced. Perhaps the strong concept running through 'V' has brought out the best in these accomplished musicians. It starts off sounding like an alternative creation myth on 'Evolution (The Grand Design') and there are references to the coming and going of Ma'at, Atlantis, Poseidon, Egyptian pharaohs and a great battle between darkness and light as five becomes one. Beginning with an operatic prelude sung in Latin the atmosphere on 'V' is super charged and never lets up in over an hour of outstanding music. Lyrics and melodies are very strong and only rarely on tracks like 'Fallen' do Symphony X take the straight heavy metal route suggested by the sampler I referred to earlier. This is no criticism at all of 'Fallen' where the two Michaels, Romeo and Pinnella exchange synth and guitar licks brilliantly. The segue 'Transcendence' is an outstanding example of film music and takes us into 'Communion and the Oracle' with pastoral acoustic guitar and a solid and inventive rhythm section of Michael Lepond and Jason Rullo taking us through strings to an epic theme with vocal harmonies strongly reminiscent of Yes. Michael Romeo's guitar break is economical and cleverly constructed. Not a minute of music is wasted on this album, a rare achievement indeed! Again Romeo and Pinnella trade solos and the orchestral quality of this work shines
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