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Album Reviews
Well,
it may still be raining outside, but summer has well and
truly arrived in the shape of Moonflower Lane. You
can almost see the pretty girls rollerskating down Sunset
Boulevard, guys in open topped cars playing music loudly
from their car stereo systems, get the picture.
This is mainstream rock at it's very best with just a hint
of Nirvana/Foo Fighters thrown in for good measure. Infact
fans of the Foo Fighters should go ape over Moonflower
Lane.
The whole album flows effortlessly between tracks with
musicianship of the highest order. I loved this album from
the first few bars of 'I Do' to the last track
'Her Palace'.
This album has excellent guitar work, both acoustic and
electric driving rhythms and chorus lines that were made to
be shouted from the highest mountains. Moonflower
Lane is best described as summertime music with a heavy
edge.
It's hard to pick out any favourite tracks from such an
outstanding set, But I will mention 'Hollow Eyes'
with it's rather unusual intro and effects mid-song give it
a distinct Beatles feel, something you might have found on
The White Album. The beautiful semi-acoustic ballad 'Walk
With My Love' is a joy to the ears, and 'Another Day'
with it's driving rhythm, excellent lead guitar and
singalong chorus, But for me 'The Truth' is simply
outstanding, a track that makes you want to punch the air
with joy, gets you foot-tapping and your heart pounding.
Moonflower Lane brings a feelgood factor into your
life and makes the whole world a better place. Moonflower
Lane has class stamped all over it and will appeal to
all sides of the metal spectrum.
Highly Recommended!!!
~
stormbringer
Since King's X is a band of interest to proggers, I feel
obliged to take this one on as well, to see how it
compares. As with King's X the music is quite rocky, with
harmony vocals and as it is, the opening track is quite
nice: comparatively soft verses and a rocking chorus with
heavy guitars and harmony vocals. I like the drumming
quite a lot on this effort. The Island Sea is in the same
vein. The music reminds me not only of King's X, but
through this also of the Beatles and Lenny Kravitz. This
Beatles influence is strengthened by the presence of the
cello on for instance Live In Your House. For the rest
this track is a bit boring. The same holds somewhat for I
Know Everything: the vocal melody is not very interesting
and the use of the vocals is the same as on the other
tracks, but the loud ending with again that great
drumming save the song somewhat and that cellistic
afterbirth is also quite nice. But what I mind about this
music are the uninventive choruses and vocal melodies.
Nice thing about Without You is the meandering of the
vocal melody in the chorus, but the verses sound like
I've heard them before. It seems that Tabor has a knack
for ending his songs well since of Hollow Eyes, the
ending is also the most likable part. On the romantic
Walk With My Love his vocals are at first treated a bit.
The rock is back on Another Day. On the whole I'm tempted
to compare Her Palace on this album to Kindness Of
Strangers of Spock's Beard (organ, vocals), but then only
the verses or a song like June. I also have to admit that
also there I prefer Spock's Beard (disregarding the fact
that they are more varied). Especially this song, which
is one of the more varied ones, shows quite a likeness to
Spock's Beard.
The problem with this CD is the lack of appealing
melodies and the instrumentation that is on the one hand
quite good, especially the drums, but for progressive not
varied enough. This is what we might call singer/
songwriter hard rock in the vein of King's X (but less
hard I guess), and echoes of both Beatles and through
this of Spock's Beard. But I feel that the music on this
album is too self similar and shows too little variety to
be interesting for proggers
~
Jurriaan Hage
Ty Tabor(Homepage)
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