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Review:
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Once again, thanks to a site like this we can discover
to some new acts that are meaning to keep prog rock alive,
if we turn to any side of the globe we will find some young
bands trying to put their grain of sand and leave a mark
on this realm, some of them fail, some of them have success,
but the beauty of this is that there is always prog rock.
Now, and thanks to Uwe I could listen to this young band
that come from the United States called The Source, who
had released one album previously, which sadly I have not
listened yet, but this year they came up with their second
record called "Prickly Pear" which contains 5 songs and
a total time of 49 minutes, so a song average of almost
10 minutes.***
The album kicks off with "Promised Land" song that caught
my attention since the very first notes due to it's dense
and complex musical style, the guitars and keyboards take
the leadership, and after a couple of minutes the song slows
down and vocals enter, and during it's 10 minutes we will
find several little changes, the song is very rich, and
in moments causes a sensation of happiness, there are great
moments here full of complexity like in minute 7 when it
turns a bit faster, and despite being a new band, their
style takes some older style, I mean kind of retro prog.***
"Star Dreamer", has a dreamy feeling indeed, with a
soft and calm harmony and some mellow vocals, this is one
of the shorter songs on this album, but it also have it's
little changes and it's complexity, in some moments it may
turn to a catchy and poppier song, but it is good anyways.***
"Until Morning Time" is another of the epics on this
album, and that retro prog feeling returns here mainly due
to the keyboard sound and guitars, that sometimes remind
me a bit to Yes, I can imagine Howe was an influence to
The Source guitar player. Being a long song, it is obvious
that here we will find several changes, all of them following
a proper style that will take you to one short moment to
another, at the half of the song a piano enters and gives
a radical change to the melody, but again in some moments
I reminds me to Yes, very nice song.***
"Thin Air" is the other shorter song on the album,
and begins again with a soft sound along with the melodic
vocals, suddenly some heavier guitar appears, there are
also some backing vocals there and a kind of funky guitar
later, at the middle of the song drums and a nice piano
sound appear creating a cool song.***
"Castles in the Sky" is the last song of this album
and it is the longest track reaching 15 minutes, the start
is a bit slow but it is growing and progressing of course,
there are some background organ over there , good guitar
notes and after a couple of minutes it makes a stop in order
to return with acoustic guitar and then vocals, after all
the song remains very calm in moments it actually sounds
kind of a ballad, but then there is another change with
a guitar riff, I like a lot epic songs, and normally I put
them as the best songs on the albums, this time it does
not happen, this is a nice epic but that's it, there are
better tracks on Prickly Pear, I believe this track would
be better if they cut some redundant moments.***
After all, it is a very nice album, with some symphonic
moments but I believe this is a clear example of the so
called "Crossover Prog". Claps for the band and keep the
great work. My final grade is 3 stars.***
Enjoy it!
memowakeman
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