Ephemeral Sun: Harvest Aorta

At first blush, oddly-named Ephemeral Sun's oddly-named Harvest Aorta appears to represent a major change in direction for the band. Until now they've been fronted by Soprano Laurie-Ann Haus, and the instrumentals have tended toward the heavier end of the progressive music spectrum. This led listeners and reviewers to label the band as another goth-rock outfit, in the vein of a Nightwish or The Gathering – which was wrong. The strength of the band's music has always lain in its instrumentals.

After an amicable parting of the ways with their vocalist, Ephemeral Sun is now purely instrumental and the songwriting is focused more intently on its strengths – pure symphonic progressive rock, without a note of metal to be heard. Brian O'Neill's guitars and John Battema's keyboards are particularly prominent, and the interplay between those instruments is as tight as a drum – and along with hook-laden melodies, it is this masterful interweaving of guitar and keys that defines the album.

A simpler way to describe Harvest Aorta would be to compare it favorably with the recent output from The Future Kings Of England. It's all instrumental, there are just 4 tracks on the 70-minute album including a 42-minute epic, it's extremely catchy, and you'll be living happily with these melodic earworms for many weeks.

"Springsong" has a few dark, almost moments, which are alleviated by elegant piano and guitar lines, and ends with a theatric sound-over of old radio transmissions over an orchestral 'Tron-like wash. The 10-minute "Prism" is more bombastic and overtly progressive, while "Memoirs" is a softer, more pastoral piece. These are preludes for the ambitious 42-minute epic title track, which has complex structures, multiple structural shifts, powerful melodies, metallic elements, classically oriented piano work, and spacey interludes that set up the contrast required for a multi-layered crescendo that ends the album.

We understand that as much of the recording as possible was done in a "live in the studio" environment – which lend an organic dimension to the music. Having seen the band perform more than once, I can attest to the superior quality their live performances.

Harvest Aorta contains all the hallmarks of good progressive music – classic-sounding instrumentation, references to classic prog but with a fresh and thoroughly modern approach, shifting time signatures, constantly developing song structures, tempo-changes, recurring and constantly reprised themes – it's all there right down to brief melodic references to Dream Theater and Rick Wakeman. Yet this is not prog-by-numbers. This is one of the most pleasing bodies of art rock to pass this way for a long time, and will doubtlessly feature on a majority of the "Best-of-2010" lists. And it just might require a crow bar to get it out of the CD player.

Track Listing:
1. Springsong
2. Prism
3. Memoirs
4. Harvest Aorta

Added: December 27th 2010
Reviewer: Duncan Glenday
Score:
Related Link: The Band's Web Site
Hits: 4441
Language: english

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