Glassville Records

Netherlands

Time 53:30

https://www.perfectstormsounds.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Perfect-Storm-music-114479786616873/

Geoff Penn Rating 85/100

 Upon first time of listening to “Perfect Storm’s” debut album, it would be easy to presume that the music was just ‘middle of the road, adult-orientated rock! But of course for the real quality to shine through, in anything worthwhile, particularly music it could take several plays for you to gain an understanding of the composer’s intent. And so, this is very much the case for ‘Perfect Storms’ album ‘No Air,’ the subject of this review.  You really do need to listen to this album several times In order to appreciate the deep underlying-current of compositional beauty associated with this fine album. It is an album engrained with many subtle musical facades all of which contribute to the overall composite sound provided by this talented Dutch band.

There is, throughout the seven tracks a full richness of sound that is forged through the carefully layered vocal harmonies and the relationship with the music itself. It is indeed a clever partnership where the music and the vocals integrate fully to provide a unified sound but where neither component dominates the proceedings.

The vocals are stunningly administered throughout and delivered with much feeling and conviction. Certainly, lead singer ‘Adel Saflou’ high-quality wide-ranging singing voice stands out as the dominant face of the vocal role but tucked neatly behind are the wonderful harmonious backing vocals from ‘Hiske Oosterwijk.’ These counter melodies add much panache to the proceedings providing a distinctly harmonious edge. It was pleasing to note that ‘Hiske’ does though take the lead on a couple of tracks 

From an instrumental perspective, the band are an extremely tight unit with an incredibly dominant percussive section of busy bass lines and superbly energetic drumming. They together drive forward multitudes of subtle time changes and deft changes of pace. Such variances in the rhythmic structure of the music contribute to a solid but ever-changing platform for the lead guitar to inject some amazing bursts of skilful and dexterous note bending and dynamic but well apportioned riffing. The keyboards too are well integrated within the mix adding colour and vibrancy and which also contribute greatly to overall flavour of the music.

Summary: An interesting album full of melodic instrumental passages and superb vocals throughout.  All seven tracks are top- notch, well-composed and brilliantly perormed.

 

 

Adel Saflou – Vocals
Jesse Bosman – Drums and  Keys
David Klompmakers – Bass
Hiske Oosterwijk – Vocals

 

Tracks.

  1. Straight, 2, The Search. 3, Sun for Life. 4, Hope.

5. No Air. 6, Minds Eye. 7, How it Ends.