I come back to an album released at the end of December 2021 and which concerns the project of 'Philipp Rexilius', 'Artic Plant', which is releasing its third studio recording 'A Wandering Mind', after 'A Wandering Mind', after 'The Lake of Time' in 2017 and 'The Black Riders' in 2019. On the first two albums, a large part was instrumental and, for this last baby, we find long instrumental parts, the whole mixing progressive rock, symphonic with catchy melodic lines that we immediately get used to but the sung parts are also well represented with several artists who each play a role in this concept album which tells us the story of a man wandering in a forest and who is guided by a wise man to find his home. 7 tracks for 48 minutes of listening time, that's the menu of this opus which contains 3 long developments, one of which is almost 18 minutes long, and 4 other tracks including the suite 'The Quest'.
And to begin with, I'll talk about the progressive saga of the album 'Twist of Fate' which is worth buying on its own if you like to mix progressive and symphonic music because everything is gathered to take you into a maze of different soundscapes. It all starts with a long instrumental introduction, at first epic and melodic as you wish and which continues with a vintage keyboard solo in a driving rhythm, then the main theme appears again and gives way to the sung part in a light magnificent crescendo interspersed here and there with remarkable guitar solos. Without transition, after the middle of the track, we move on to a new, more energetic part with Hammond organ-like keyboards, then, a total break for the very beautiful finale which starts calmly and takes on a strong epic and symphonic atmosphere with a melody filled with a beautiful emotion and supported by a powerful orchestration. As for the other compositions, the suite 'The Quest' is composed of three parts with first 'Desire' with atmospheric 'Floydian' sounds, then, the short instrumental 'Contemplation' unfolds aerial melodic lines and finally, 'Relief' ends with a new contemplative section conducive to meditation and then a more epic finale featuring the trombone of 'Susanne Rexilius'. The rest of the album is made up of two long developments, firstly 'The Forest' which is a beautiful epic ballad, with a much more energetic and technical central instrumental section sandwiched between two quieter parts, and then 'Brothers in Silence' which shows a more progressive face, joyfully mixing jazzy instrumental, hard rock and fairground music with sung parts deploying very beautiful, harmonious and moving sections, the album ending with 'Perception' which closes 'A Wandering Mind' in a beautiful way with a semi-acoustic song whose melody stays in your head after the last note.
To sum up, the German 'Philipp Rexilius' with his project 'Arctic Plant' continues his adventure with a third album of great quality filled with beautiful melodies that can be assimilated very quickly, which makes 'A Wandering Mind' very accessible for a large audience that likes the progressive and symphonic style... | |
