Seismic Cry: Reverence

The 2nd full length release Reverence from Montréal's Seismic Cry is another ambitious and musically rich concept piece. Where the first album The Hopeless Flare primarily centered around a 27 minute composition which told the story of an Irish ship which sank in Canadian waters in the early 1900's, Philippe Gaudet (the main force behind Seismic Cry) tackles another concept here on Reverence, this time recalling tales of the Alaskan and Canadian Gold rush through the poetry of Robert W. Service.

The music on Reverence is generally difficult to classify but comes across for the most part as a delicate mixture of ambient and folk, although there are a few straight ahead rock passages, for example the second half of "Dead Horse Trail" and "Ghosts". Gaudet injects what appears to be the sounds of prospectors and horses into the introduction of one song and the sounds of bells ringing in another to give the listener a bit of added feeling for the time and place that the songs describe. The vocals, both male and female are shared throughout and the tracks which do work the best, such as the ten minute "The Human Serpent" are the ones where the ethereal female vocals are the most dominate.

I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of the style of music on Reverence but I found myself intrigued by the somewhat eccentric aura of mystery that this disc gave off and I have to say the more I listened to it the more I liked it. You don't necessarily catch all the subtle nuances within the music the first couple of times, but each time my ears peeled off another aural layer of music, I heard something different that I'd missed previously. If you're willing to spend some time with Reverence then the payoff ultimately will prove to be pretty rewarding.

Track Listing
1) The Clarion Call of June
2) The Human Serpent
3) Epitaph
4) Dead Horse Trail
5) Tent City
6) Ghosts
7) The Saint and The Poor Man
8) Prelude

Added: August 23rd 2007
Reviewer: Ryan Sparks
Score:
Related Link: Seismic Cry Website
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Language: english

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