I discovered the British during the year 2022 with their album 'Fall Of The Watcher' and I saved them in my list of artists to follow. They therefore return in this year 2024 with a fifth studio recording, 'Stalagmite Steeple', which marks the group's 10th anniversary, their first eponym album dating from 2016. Made up of a trio, with 'Robin Peachey' who created the project in 2014 and who provides vocals and plays guitar and keyboards and who was then joined by his brother Steve on keyboards and by 'Paul Johnston' on drums but also on guitar, keyboards and production, they offer us 6 compositions between 5 and 10 minutes each one which takes us into a universe made of delicacy and softness reminding me in certain places of the atmospheric progressive of the 'Floyds' and names like 'Rick Miller' or 'Tim Bownes' but also certain compositions from first albums of 'Blackfield' and the atmospheres released by the duo 'Damian Wilson/Adam Wakeman'.
Browsing an album from this band is a bit like going on a journey, immersing yourself in warm landscapes filled with a serenity conducive to escape. 'Dark Morality' sets the tone and welcomes us into a touching story which reminds us of the difficult period of covid during which loved ones were separated, highlighting all this lack of empathy and ultimately humanity in our leaders The singing of 'Robin Peachey' is soft, its 'Floydian' guitar solo triggering numerous shivers in me so characteristic of an immense pleasure of listening. Follows 'The Final Time' which is a magnificent ballad with a melody which delicately caresses you and whose chorus is immediately grafted into your head, then, the title song takes over and unfolds for 10 delicious minutes, beginning in a refined piano/voice ambiance that is fragile but oh so moving and which gains momentum slightly with a divine new guitar solo (see the video above). We then let ourselves be taken into a slight crescendo with a repeated phrase which comes to penetrate you only to fall into a few guitar notes which resonate in the depths of your being: simply sublime! With 'Meaningless To Worth', we are once again caught in a kind of peaceful dream that we travel through peacefully with a slight final crescendo preparing the guitar solo which gives you goosebumps again, then, it's on to the turn of 'Die For Me' which is a scathing criticism of our leaders possessing all the powers of life and death over the population and which has a magnificent chorus on which 'Robin Peachey' places his plaintive song which can only move, the alternations of intensities bringing even more force to the whole and the final crescendo ending this magnificent title in intense emotional tension. We come to the end of our wonderful musical journey with 'The Raging Sea' which is a final ballad describing our merciless world and which, musically, shows us the path to another much more peaceful world by lulling us to a slow tempo with very beautiful melodic lines, the guitar embellishing the plaintive singing of 'Robin Peachey' and the hypnotic bass adding to this feeling of fullness.
In summary, the trio of 'Return To The Earth' offers us a moment suspended in time which allows us to escape and explore marvelous musical landscapes filled with serenity and, to resume the invitation to the journey of 'Charles Beaudelaire', 'Stalagmite Steeple' takes us on a journey, where "all is order and beauty, luxury, calm and voluptuousness"... | |
