At the fairly regular frequency of an album every year (his latest album 'Altered States' dating from 2023), 'Rick Miller' offers us a new album in 2024 with 'One of the Many' which is, according to his Bandcamp page, I quote, "old style progressive rock made famous in the 60s and 70s by bands such as Pink Floyd, The Alan Parsons Project and The Moody Blues". The previous albums already highlighted atmospheric rock inherited from the 70s and this latest baby is in the same line and the names of 'Pink Floyd' and 'The Alan Parsons Project' actually often come to mind in the 8 compositions that make up this album.
Shared between long developments and shorter titles, 'One of the Many' opens with the 8 minutes of Atrophy' which takes us into Rick's progressive universe made of gentleness and serenity, a few orientalising bits bringing a pleasant change of scenery and intervening spoken parts offering us a touch of theatricality. More direct, 'Life Goes On' is a ballad in which we are lulled by the muffled voice of 'Rick Miller' and the interventions of 'Barry Haggarty' on the guitar and which is further punctuated by a spoken part, then, in alternation, 'The Lost Years' offers us a new melodious 8-minute composition which is introduced by aerial female vocals and which then presents several rhythmic changes and alternates rougher sections with a saturated guitar and much calmer sections, the arrangements instrumental with the flute, cello interventions and oriental guitar solos being magnificent. We remain in a sort of waking dream with the instrumental 'She of the Darkness' which is a delicious piano/flute duet, then, with the title song, we are right in the atmosphere filled with serenity with a slow tempo on which we completely abandon ourselves, the melody plunging us back into the beautiful melodies of 'The Alan Parsons Project' and the captivating interventions of the 'Floydian' guitar of 'Barry Haggarty' being delicious. We arrive at the long development 'Perchance to Dream' which takes us into a delicate and harmonious labyrinth, the flute adding moments suspended in time and the gentle singing of 'Rick Miller' continuing to rock us affectionately, the finale accelerating the tempo on the melodic theme which can still be reminiscent of Alan Parsons'. Follows 'Wonderlust' which is a continuation of the previous titles but in a more serious register, the instrumental arrangements further highlighting this melancholic atmosphere, then 'Another Time' which takes us one last time into this relaxing sound universe, this time in a semi-acoustic composition in which the guitar and cellos delicately accompany the gentle singing of 'Rick Miller'.
In summary, the albums of 'Rick Miller' follow one another with an impressive frequency (this is the sixth album in six years) and 'One of the Many' is still filled with beautiful melodies that we calmly savour the headphones on the ears after a hard day of work and which should make all fans and all lovers of relaxing atmospheric rock happy... | |
