As my good friend Lazland loves to state, too much fantastic music, not enough time. Just like him, I try desperately to keep tabs on a daily basis on what is going on in Progland, and of course, occasionally bypassing some superb material. Thankfully, I can relay on a few trusted colleagues (Anne-Claire of Bad Dog, Laz, and Bela Alabastrom) as well as hundreds of musicians sending me their creations for review. Bela latched me onto the Welsh band 25 Yard Screamer, which name I had heard but not yet discovered, having been around since 2023. Thank ye, dearest friend ! Incredibly perhaps, this iteration of the band has leader, vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist and programmer Nick James and his trusted bass partner Matt Clarke handling the entire spectrum of sounds , save guest performers Carly Tucker on vocals and violinist Maria Grig.
The sleek and persuasive “Mother Tongue” spreads a groove for a dozen minutes of vaporous insistence that reaches the mark. The bass guitar’s influence is noteworthy, as it settles the score with steady conviction, the staunch lyrics unyielding as Tucker lets her lungs do the talking, ‘each sunrise a future unlike the last’, particularly impactful when later repeated twice by James. The pace is leisurely, like anesthesia intravenously rendering the body comfortably numb, while the soul remains insecurely vivid, a startling premise. The piano droplets including all the pathos one could possibly dread, underlining the will to survive. Poignancy and despair.
A couple of 7 minute + pieces, “When Our Ending Began” instils sincere vocals from both Carly and Nick in a cinematic instrumental that comes across a both a song and a prayer, festooned first by a sublime lead guitar solo that offers two separate tonalities before the violin supplies a sorrowful sentiment as if a final elegy, as the beauty of the instrument sinks deep into the soul, easily among the finest displays in recent memory. ‘As we fold into darkness’. Good old fashioned brilliant!
Definitely a highlight track that proves to be deliciously unsettling, the bruising Clarke assault taking no prisoners on the detonating “The Reclamation“, a frenzied steamroller of fuzzy riffs blasting into oblivion that may rekindle images of Lemmy, and where James shows off his considerable voice as he punishingly exhorts ‘ Raze the earth, stir the ocean, burn the sky, bury them all, bury them all, dash their cities, break their bonds, burn their wealth, bury them all, bury them all, a brutal message, a saving grace, a means to an end’. Sounds like the current October mayhem in France, Spain, Italy and Albania. Capitals ablaze. Its not only heavy, its also molten, an obsessive abscess that bursts into the thin air of life.
Another 10-minute affair on the overtly reflective “The Silence After Us” with an uncanny subtlety in the delivery, Clarke’s sturdy bass providing the shivers, and James’ swooning voice assessing the damage and his programmed drums superbly rendered, echoing across the arrangement. The mood expertly summed up with lyrics that ‘This simple life, cruel with time, flows and drifts like a desert’. The switch is suddenly activated as ‘slowly and fearfully’, we the audience ‘creep through the dim light of dawn’. It sure ain’t pretty ! There is an eerie Kafka-esque sense of alienation, a stone’s throw from madness and surely eternal pools of guilt.
“My Children Have Memories” recharges the turbocharged batteries, clutching into full throttle, still navigating the shadowy road of life ahead, headlights blazing angry fire. The hardest task in life is to be a parent, a good father (Nick) and mother (Carly), despite all the obstacles thrown at them within the daily tedium, by an often-harsh outside world, as well as all the inner demons that attempt to take over our emotions. The shrill guitars cry out in agony, the bass fending off all the potential wounds.
“Destruction of Self” possesses an exalted indifference vocally, lyrically and musically, merging as one valiant statement of apathy, James slowly exhaling the deepest emotions, within a gentle tornado swirl where the clanging guitars and trembling bass rule supreme. ‘I fold myself so very small… disturbing all things in my way’ (the ingenious use of the word disturb really hit me). A mechanical, tick-tock dirge that seeps into the ghostliest shadows of the inner self, rife with insecurity. A ridiculously powerful experience.
“All Will Follow” is thankfully not an alternate version of the U2 classic, but a buzzing tremor that wraps itself into a massive wall of sound of orchestral electronics, thumping drum patterns, quasi-Gregorian choirs and that incessantly pleading voice. Then, through the stifling haze, we fall to our knees in supplication, courtesy of a stunning guitar shimmer that provides the courage to soldier onwards. The primal bass rallies the strength necessary, the melody becoming a glorious anthem, loaded with passionate zeal and devotion, the chanting overtaking any resistance to ‘drown in your voice’.
And then came the emotional release from all the pent-up torment of this hour of profound pilgrimage, “Time Examines Us”, as James states eloquently ‘I need to find the joy, in each second of each day, I look to times ahead, less time that I have spent with fear and regret’. What an epiphany…The melody is crushingly compassionate and thus, in the end, there is a Light.
4.5 Cymru volley into the onion bag.