[Progressive Rock] IO Earth - Aura 2020 FLAC (J... !!BETTER!!
1. "Aura" (7:52) very laid back and slow to develop--like a classic PINK FLOYD or UNITOPIA song. It even had a David Gilmour-like guitar solo in near the end. (13.25/15)2. "Waterfall" (11:24) spacious drums, piano, bass, synth washes, and female choir vocals open this slow-paced song. It's like ENIGMA-treated PURE REASON REVOLUTION. At 2:45 everything falls away while piano continues as sole accompanist to Rosanna Lefevre's lovely vocal. (She sounds a lot like FREQUENCY DRIFT's wonderful 2011 vocalist, Antje Auer.) At 3:30 the full band jumps back in, giving Rosanna a little break, but then she returns to sing her next verse. Rosanna's vocalise in the seventh and eighth minutes is pure delight as she slips in and out of operatic mode. Though flute and violin are purportedly in the mix throughout, I cannot really pick them up in the mix (until the very end). A very nice, solid prog epic. (17.75/20)3. "Breathe" (8:36) more pretty soundscapes with gentle, etheric vocals (and samples of radio interview) but, once again, the song's development is so slow and incremental that the tendency is for the listener (me) to get bored long before the somewhat-interesting subtleties and idosyncracies arrive. (17/20)4. "Resonance I (3:05) (8.5/10)5. "Circles" (6:15) straight out of Giancarlo Erra's NOSOUND playbook, this spacious, atmospheric song starts with spacey atmosphere and almost-spoken male vocals before the band kicks in and Rosanna begins wafting her lilting vocalise around in the mix. An eerie Gothic pregnant spaciousness takes over in the middle before the band kicks back in and Rosanna's vocalise continues winding around while male and female vocalists sing some kind of subdued, chanted lyric together. Effective. (8.75/10)6. "Shadows" (6:18) piano If the band's video has anything to say about this song, it's about a now-homeless war veteran (Baltic wars of the 1990s? or the Middle East conflicts?) and the memories that haunt him: friends lost in battle, lost daughter (or children as collateral damage), lost homeland. Dave Cureton gives quite an impassioned vocal in the second half. (9/10)7. "Resonance II (2:23) (4.5/5)8. "The Rain" (18:02) another song that is only separated from the UNITOPIA catalogue by the talented vocals of Rosanna Lefevre (who is used here as the second/relief vocalist)--and by the distinction that not even Unitopian songs develop this slowly, this simplistically. Don't get me wrong: there are definitely some nice sylistic choices here--and more dynamic shifts than on any of the previous songs--it's just . . . nice background music. The various spoken people samples in the thirteenth and fourteenth minutes try to give it a hopeful perspective but, in the end, it just feels pessimistic. (30/35)Total Time 63:56B+/4.5 stars; a near-masterpiece of atmospheric neo-progressive rock. social review comments Review PermalinkPosted Monday, September 7, 2020 Review this album Report (Review #2445604)
[Progressive Rock] IO Earth - Aura 2020 FLAC (J...
Complaints? I O Earth doesn't let me up for air. She drowns me. Cloaked and robed, shaved priests cram velvet marmalade into my mummy hole, along with myrrh, hooded snake, hippopotamus ,thyme and sublime odd time signatures. Speckled and bejeweled, I O Earth's- New World is a Maryjane Kay Pink in the cheeks thing. Oooohhh! She spanks like the Dicken's. That interlude in Oliver twists up inside her diamond tiara, mascara, pearl drops and devil dew dripping on her moon shine liquor. Oooo Cleo, wet in the star shine. Yeti, ye...yet, like ancient Egypt I O Earth's New World suffers from the Moses Syndrome. Similar to the Red Sea fiasco, IO Earth should have split the album. But no! After listening to Close to the Edge, Thick as a Brick, and an unusually bossy burning bush, Moses hikes up the mountain and comes down a month later, bearing a prog masterpiece, , only to find his people in a drunken orgy dancing in 4/4 time around a golden calf, purchased on Ebay. Any prophet would be pissed, so he threw down the prog masterpiece and it broke in half, and became New World. Next time Moses brought down the Ten Commandments. And oh boy! That brought us all down. Sequels suck!I O Earth should have recorded a double CD. Too much bliss for a masochist to listen to a once. I had to adapt. 100 minutes of uninterrupted serenity was too much for mortal man to bare New World made me face my fear of pleasure and embrace, a new century prog renaissance masterpiece. At first I couldn't comprehend it. It was as if, I yearned and pined for an exotic teapot. So, I hurriedly drove a hour north up interstate-35 to "Topeka Teapot" -Biggest Teapot Warehouse in the World! Bigger than Topeka Kansas! Jade teapots, porcelain teapots, cubistic tea, ivory tea...My Umpa Lumpa Utopia! Too many choices. I was overwhelmed by the New World. A triple album soaked in surreal aural moonshine! Yet, part of me wanted to pretend I didn't hear it. It would be so much easier to sift thru panned-out rivers for fools gold. I couldn't deny it. The New World is- a shiny masterpiece, golden molten, forged in Super nova fire. If there was a prog sub genre called... World Prog. I O Earth would wear the crown! 5 Crowns Royals for New WorldPS. My sweet grandmother taught me...If you can't say anything nice... Don't even open your mouth! So, I mainly review 5 star masterpieces. I rate plenty of *, **, ***. and **** star albums. I rate 'em but I don't review them. Beauty inspires me! Insipid and mediocre... not so much. I don't review albums with over 987 ratings. Enough said, besides Prog Archives warns me to think twice before giving "masterpiece status" to any album. Collaborators are wise musicophiles. I deeply respect the collaborator opinions, as I wait like an eight year old for Christmas, for the Collaborator's annual best of list. Yet, I can't help believe that recent Italian prog renaissance and whatever kind of prog you want to call I O Earth, IQ, Steven Wilson, Barock Project, Leprous, Riverside, 3rDegree, and Anekdoten...Whatever you want to call it...We are NOT in a drought anymore! These are the good old days. Golden days for progressive rock. 2015 marks the cross hairs of a prog rock bulls-eye! So forgive me if I give I-owe-earth five golden stars. social review comments Review PermalinkPosted Saturday, September 5, 2015 Review this album Report (Review #1459591) 041b061a72