I'm coming back to a progressive rock album released at the end of October 2021 that I'm only discovering now, and that concerns the Englishmen of 'Drifting Sun' with a new studio recording 'Forsaken Innocence', after their two very good last opuses 'Twilight' dating from 2017 and 'Planet Junkie' dating from 2019. The line-up has changed somewhat as next to 'Pat Sanders' there is still 'Mathieu Spaeter' on guitar, but the new bassist is now 'John Jowitt' who is no stranger to the progressive world as he has been involved in renowned projects such as 'Arena' on the last album 'Double Vision', and 'Mick Pointer' ('Arena also) has left his place on drums to 'Jimmy Pallagrosi' who was the drummer of 'Karnataka'. Another major change is that Greek 'John "Jargon" Kosmidis' is now providing all the vocal performances and has released a very nice solo album 'The Fading Thought' in 2020. Guest appearances include keyboardist 'Ben Bell' and the violinist 'Eric Bouillette' who were already on board with 'Planet Junkie', the latter contributing to a number of progressive projects, the latest being 'This Winter Machine'.
On the menu of this album, 8 compositions, 3 of which exceed 10 minutes for a big hour of listening: we are right in a progressive researched that we appropriate as we listen, starting with the first long development 'King of The Country' which embarks us in a progressive saga made of a patchwork of small sections alternating different atmospheres, tempos and intensities and which offers us a wonderful beginning, both vocally and instrumentally. Insidious' follows, which unlike its lighter predecessor, brings a certain melancholy with its slow tempo that lets 'Jargon' show all its vocal talent by following the alternation of intensities, going from a calm and rather dark register to a powerful and higher voice, then, 'Dementium' continues in this melancholy that accompanies us throughout this composition made, once again, of a remarkable alternation between weak and strong times. We continue our progressive journey with the magnificent ballad 'New Dawn' thanks to the beautiful piano performances of 'Pat Senders' and the remarkable vocals of 'Jargon', which know how to trigger that little shiver that is a sign of intense emotion, just like 'Mathieu Spaeter' with its short guitar solos (too short for my taste). We reach the masterpiece of the album with the 25 minutes of the eponymous title of the album, which is divided into two parts with, first of all, the first 11 minutes in a catchy melodic progressive in which the vocal and instrumental parts follow one another like drawers that are pulled out one after the other and which brings us back to the best of the progressive rock of the 70s/80s. As for the second part, almost 15 minutes long and entirely instrumental, it is more technical and deploys multiple changes of tempo and intensity which makes it less accessible and requires listening to it several times to get the full instrumental richness, the only downside I would mention is the presence of repetitions of musical phrases a little too important which could have been reduced. After this intense and dense progressive saga, the end of the album offers us the short acoustic ballad 'Time to Go' in a purified atmosphere that deals with the loss of a loved one, then, 'Hand on Heart' ends on a more energetic and catchy note with a more immediate accessibility. In summary, English is a very good album.
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