Our favourite ex-surgeon is back with a third solo album that should cause shudders of joy across the progressive universe. With luminaries like Roger King and Sean Timms on keyboards and the amazing Chester Thompson on the drum kit, John delivers with guitar scalpel in one hand and microphone sutures in the other, a true master of both, yet also incorporating a vast array of other instruments. Emma Bartsch handles all the lead female vocals once again and, there is also a massive orchestra including strings, woodwinds and brass, a huge challenge that has worked out in spades.
He seeks to anesthetize us with an opening epic infusion of cinematic dreamwork “Christmas Present” ticking along for over 12 minutes, where John gets to regale a tale of holiday cheer, an overtly expansive progressive sleighride, a jingle bell piano from Sean Timms Yuletide may seem to be the subject matter, a great time to be had by all with a pulverizing prog soundtrack, now that is a gift that requires no ribbons! Truth be told, the piece is really about social injustice, the divisions between those who have too much and those who want just a little. Superlative entertainment, with glittering vocal gymnastics that blew my mind, ushered along by sumptuous keyboard and guitar flurries, crackling embers burning in the adorned fireplace. The most unexpected opener, both in size and content, still searching for my dislocated jaw (John, can you help me put it back in place, please?). The medieval acoustic passage is simply astonishing, the orchestrations turning the moment into a magical ride that provides nothing less that smiling revelry. For whom the bells toll. I could not help to be reminded of ‘My Fair Lady’ for some not that obscure reason , I guess Eliza Doolittle and her father getting married in the morning had imprinted way deeper in my soul.
Fluttering flutes introduce the bucolic “All Over”, an opportunity to showcase some expert picking on the various guitars, be it acoustic or electric, rhythm or lead. And yet, the mood veers into a romantic debate on quarrelling relationships, that has all the usual suspects: passion, miscommunication, trust, jealousy and desire, often all-rolled up into one massive labyrinth of hostile confusion. Yes, pain and regret are never fun. That is why they call it the blues.
“The Girl” is as like-sized epic as the introduction, another whopping slice of intricacy and delight that reconnects with the previous album’s focus on “The Boy”. Now it’s her turn to bask in the spotlight, and Emma really takes charge, once the narration by Mark Addy has set the stage. The orchestra establishes a dramatic melancholia that defies description, solemn and sorrowful, where promises were broken, love abandoned. The lyrics are extraordinary: “I’m Rising , as you begin to fall, advancing as you begin to stall, you chased a dream and so did I , and now it seems….It’s my turn to fly”. The haunting mellotron combines with the pizzicato strings into a symphony of liberation and impending freedom. Magnificently, John carves the outrageously gorgeous melody on his electric guitar with impeccable concentration and exactitude. His piano playing is also noteworthy. A definite highlight track on this album.
The following eight tracks should be viewed (or heard in this case) as the languorous “First Day” suite, a musical treatise on the unfairness of life can be harrowing. I will let John explain : ‘Starts with my first day as a doctor when I met a young woman who it turns out was having her last day’. When extremes do collide, we tend to realize their impact much latter, when all the fuss has subsided, perhaps even vanished, from our minds. That is when the ghosts appear to remind us that nothing is forgotten, and everything is literally skin deep. Humans are and always will be extraordinarily fragile. Our minds perhaps even more so than our bodies. Musically, the melodies are gut-wrenching, the instrumental details way beyond even the slightest reproach, each segment a chapter in the never-ending lives we all live, often intertwined with our leisure time and paying the price for it. The piano is in the expert hands of the former Steve Hackett musical director, now that he has officially retired from touring (The King can rest!). The various orchestral sections are utterly complicit in the overall sound, creating all the operating room drama one might expect, the trials and tribulations of lives saved and others lost. Three violins, two violas and two cellos can pack quite the wallop, nothing ever dragging on too long with sufficient beauty to dare to stop on a dime on “The Last Room on the Left Part 2” where the electronic beep of life just flatlines, extinguished forever. Gulp!
Three delightful solo albums in, and its fair to say that the good doctor has certainly diagnosed his muse to perfection, this recording will join “Dark Blue” and “The Boy” as yet another champion in his pantheon of creativity, all highly rated by the critics and seemingly destined for many more inspired performances in the future. You can take the mask off now, John, we are definitely cured and maybe, so are you.
4.5 revolving doors