KEYBOARDS DOMINATED (PROG)A new studio album, and it’s the REAL follow-up to ‘Chronometree’, and we all know how good that was!!! So, does ‘Lex Rex’ live up to our expectations? HELL, YESSS!!! I mean to say – you just KNOW it’s class when you hear the opening, post-intro track - It’s nothing short of mind-blowing - One of those where you just have to go back and start again, if only to believe what you have heard first time round – is that Yes – is it ELP or the Nice? No, it’s Camel – oh no, it’s Yes, change that it’s Rush, ooops no, there’s some Starcastle, is that Chris Squire I hear? Oh, there’s some Greenslade... oh, hang it – blow all these comparisons this is just THE BUSINESS!!! Only one track in, and hey, I’m convinced already – This is truly sensational music and one of the most impressive openings to a prog-rock album we’ve heard, ever! Apart from 3 short narrative sections (it is a concept album you know!) the CD has 8 tracks of utterly fantastic music. About 70% of it is instrumental, and it’s almost too much to absorb in one listen, but each repeat play brings even more exultation, more thrilling multi-keyboard solos, more breathtaking guitar leads and plenty more surges of pure listening pleasure for you to enjoy, and there seems to be an endless supply of all that, from start to finish of ‘Lex Rex’. You might not have the time, or want to read all the more detailed stuff that follows, but you should have gathered by now that we are talking one very special and truly sensational album here. It’s even better than ‘Chrononotree’, and many of you know how good that was - The wall-of-sound approach of that CD has been replaced by a more crystalline, yet still full-sounding, multi-layered set of arrangements that flow magically for music so intricate and impassioned. This is prog-rock the way almost all of us love it to be - No pop, no neo, no fusion - Just out and out pure-prog – symphonic, dynamic and exciting, with harmony vocals that melt the heart and more imaginative themes and head spinning solos than you can shake a stick at. The sound this band make from their vast armoury of keyboards (including Mini-Moogs, Mellotrons and Hammond organs) together with several forms of guitar and bass & drums is positively awesome indeed, and to hear that searing Howe styled ‘Relayer’-era Yes slide electric guitar sound come and go is overwhelming at times. All you can do is listen, and be transfixed, open-mouthed and utterly, utterly amazed at what you are hearing. It’s instrumental craftsmanship of the highest calibre, sprinkled liberally with vocals of equal quality. Without a doubt, ‘Lex Rex’ is Glass Hammer’s finest hour (well, hour and seven minutes to be precise). It is 70’s derived music that loses absolutely nothing for being created today, and is one of the finest albums of its kind-EVER! Click the extra information link for a full blow-by-blow account of the action.
Before we go any further, please be aware, that although we are using a lot of big name comparisons in this rather epic review (but the music does merit the time spent doing it), the band are not in any way cloning or copying the artist/band names we quote – This album is very much their own creation - We only offer these names as useful references that will enable you to gain some idea of what the music sounds like, because it is the SOUNDS, not the music itself that evokes the comparison we are making. It takes real writing talent, as well as the ability to play the instruments well, to make ‘music’ this good, and these guys have it all! Oh, apologies too for the overuse of the ‘M’ word (Mellotron), but there is lots of it in this CD and what else can you but call it for what it is A MELLOTRON! OK, with all that said and done, lets get off on one amazing musical trip with the Steve Babb and Fred Schendel firmly fixed to the controls…
‘Good Evening’ opens ‘Lex Rex’ an unusual and scratchy narrative introduction to the story, or album concept, if you like… then the show really begins with the near eleven-minute ‘Tales Of The Great Wars’, and it’s straight into prog heaven with Hammond organ set on stun, strummed acoustic guitars, stinging but tuneful electric guitars, massed Mellotrons, punching bass lines and powerhouse drumming, seemingly spanning the realms of Yes and ELP while still managing to sound totally original. The interplay between the instruments at this point is absolutely phenomenal, and there’s a lot more to come after this, believe me! At just under three minutes into the track, the vocals enter, and it’s typically Glass Hammer styled tuneful lyrics and excellent close harmony work, with the Hammonds and string-synths providing a perfect backdrop for the smooth vocal arrangement. A Steve Howe-esque slide guitar sweeps high into the heavens, then a spiralling guitar solo strikes up in real grandiose fashion. At the half way mark, a soprano choir boy and shared Mellotron / Hammond orchestration provides a break, before a passage of amazing instrumental keyboard interplay strikes up. After this instrumental section echoed vocals take up the lead once more and start the track off of a course to it’s ten minute conclusion with yet more Mellotrons, flutes and organ breaks, ending in a big arrangement of choral voices and cool Yes-styled vocal interplay, topping off with the works of an ELP-style crescendo closing the track in truly dramatic fashion.
The six-minute ‘One King’ is very heavily Yes influenced and opens with it all - Hammond organ licks, Mellotron waves, pulsating bass, slide and electric guitars and close harmony vocal arrangements (Trevor Horn era) and that whole Yes feel continues on throughout with loads of Wakeman-esque Moog solos and other keyboard parts, in fact there is a small Mellotron passage just over two minutes in that sounds like one of RW’s beautifully atmospheric Tron parts on his favourite ‘Topographoic Oceans’ album! – Could be ‘The Revealing Science Of God’ I think?
The Wakeman feel continues to dominate the latter half of the track with a fantastic reverberating piano line, with solos that sound like (and could be) Mini-Moogs, punchy organ chords and Mellotron string and choir sequences, all interacting quite brilliantly, with driving Squire like bass notes and sparkling guitar work. In the closing minute some of the faster keyboard work brings Greenslade to mind to mind too – An amazing track!
Yes comes straight to mind again for the fifteen minute epic ‘Further Up And Further In’, as Hammond organ leads into a passage of piano runs, soothing Mellotron textures, synth pyrotechnics, crunching bass and drums, building this magnificent intro passage up into a real hot and tasty prog brew that will be devoured with pleasure by many thousands of prog fans everywhere. After the initial burst climaxes, the theme starts to rebuild slowly again with added piano melody, shadowed by sweet Mellotron strings. After two and a half minutes the piece moves into pastoral territory to arrive in a tropical oasis where whispering breezes are blowing and birds are singing. The sweeping sounds of Mellotrons and plodding drums lead off into the next phase, where the air is filled with synth voices singing high above stabbing of organ chords, still in a kind of Yes meets Greenslade passage of play, with vocal interplay highly reminiscent of Yes or Starcastle. Tone bending Moog solos and choral keyboards break in and out of the main vocal part, with yet more Mellotron strings sneaking in here and there, mainly taking the form of male choirs, and all slowly steer toward the half-way mark. At just over eight-minutes into this track, the feel goes softer for a short while, and the vocalist sings us more of the story-line, interlaced with Wakeman-esque Hammond and synths that sound like Tony Banks could be playing them. Then, a moment of pure magic occurs, and the hairs on every part of my body stood to attention when this hit me - A Steve Howe style slide guitar sound sweeps up into the heavens and takes the keyboard backdrop with it, making for a passage of pure musical ecstasy. As you go with the flow, a girlie choir intermingles with some Mellotron strings and more group vocals, then all of a sudden one of the keyboard players lays down a series of piano runs that sounds like something straight out of the instrumental break in King Crimson’s ‘Cat Food’, with distant Tron choir still hanging in the background. Then more spiralling Moog solos - Then organ work that sounds like Emerson and Wakeman duelling it out together in some kind of musical version of gladiators, with a bit of Dave Greenslade and Steve Howe trying to get in on the act too. All this builds in such magnificent fashion to the point that you cannot believe instrumental prog can ever sound this good! But this really is happening and the instruments are on fire, blazing up a grand finale on one of the finest non-live passages of synth interplay you will ever experience. As the heat builds to furnace like proportions, the ivories and guitars battle it out to a huge explosive conclusion, with the final moments going all pastoral for a passage of strummed acoustic guitar, piano and sweet singing synth melodies, bringing the track to a calm and peaceful conclusion. Wonderful track - and that’s an understatement.
At this point there’s another short crackly intermission track that indicates the end of side 1 of this phantom LP. UK residents might feel that the narrator’s voice bears an uncanny resemblance to the vocal tones of one Lloyd Grossman, which it does, but it’s definitely not him!
Then it’s into ‘Music For Four Hands (And Temporal Anomaly)’, a two-minute piano piece that ends in note in repeat echo mode that I know I’ve heard done before, but I can’t quite remember where and by whom?
This butts straight up to the six-minute ‘A Cup Of Trembling’ which opens with Steve Howe style guitars and keyboards sharing the honours – again, this is very much a Yes/Starcastle meets Greenslade style of instrumental music. The synths play in under a cloud of background Mellotrons, bringing a bit of Steve Hackett period Genesis to the overall sound, then the vocal comes in perfectly at around two and a half minutes, temporarily sending the instruments into the background for a short while. However, they can’t be kept at bay for long, because these keyboard / guitar players have an unstoppable determination to solo and soar that’s just too strong to hold back. The closing moments have more of that ‘shivers down the spine’ style of sweeping slide guitar work that sent us to heaven earlier in the album and this, with Mellotron choirs, helps form the core of what becomes one huge climax at the end of the track – Always the best way for a great prog epic to finish – Brilliant!
‘Centurion’ is a near eight-minute slice of prog wonder. It opens with a piano part and then blazes into a passage of soaring electric guitar and organ/Mellotron combination backdrop that is very Genesis like in places, building up with layered choir effects and distant bell chimes, before breaking of into a complex Hammond led passage. After that they go into an almost laid-back jazz section that ends with the rhythm section seemingly fragmenting into all its constituent parts. Then the synths and Trons blaze back in for a blast of more thematic, melodic interplay, before a soaring electric guitar takes the track off into oblivion with a solo that only just overrides its synth contemporaries in the lower part of the mix. Then the splintering process starts to eat its way into that too, as the track closes in a Hackett styled guitar and Mellotron finale (think ‘Spectral Mornings’!) – Another superb piece of real prog-rock!
‘When We Were Young’ rolls in on a mist of rippling synth textures, swooshing effects and plodding drum patterns, then another Hackett-esque guitar theme takes off with a thick keyboard backdrop warming the air. Synths solo tunefully and effortlessly in the foreground and end up duelling with the guitar before the vocal enters at two and a half minutes in, quickly developing into a typically styled GH closing sequence where elements of much of what has gone before all come in and play their part. In between the story verses, the Hammond, synths and guitars all take a turn to see who can blow the best, with that big slide guitar winning the day and it slowly but surely drags the whole show upwards to an epic climactic conclusion that you could liken to something like ‘Awaken’ by Yes, strangely enough! Ten minutes of pure progressive paradise!
‘Goodnight’ is the third narrative passage of storytelling, together with more snap crackle and pop effects, then ‘Heroes And Dragons’, the only fully mellow track on the entire set, provides a perfect conclusion to ‘Lex Rex’ with a gentle, melodic acoustic song, that’s like something Pink Floyd might choose to close an album with. It has an easy vocal, strummed acoustic guitars and soft keyboard backdrop, and it’s not until the latter half of the track, that a couple of synth solos are allowed to join in and help close the album with a beautiful theme.As for the album overall - One word says it all - SENSATIONAL!