I've had COA barely 24 hours, but I'm already getting the lay of land. The topology, if you will!
First impressions are dangerous in progressive music, since they tend to change as the music begins to sink in. And while I'll lay off the epics for the most part, this release has made some definite first impressions on me.First, the "new sound" isn't so much a change of style - this is very much the known and loved Glass Hammer - as an integration of new century possibilities (rhythmic and riffing) and new compositional techniques into an ever-expanding toolbox, augmenting a symphonic rock sensibility firmly grounded in the '70s, not to say 1700's. The choral polyphony, the lovely melodies, the lush synths and strings, clean guitar solos, it's all there, snuggled comfortably next to the trancy/techno-like rhythms and shredding prog-metal guitar and percussion.
Second, David's heads-up last month (David the Yeshead, not the Shredmeister) about the continued integration of the Adonia String Trio was right on - I do believe I heard a viola solo from Susan nestled tightly between Fred's keyboard and Shreddy's guitar solos on track 2! (Right? Wrong? I've misidentified viola before ;^). From swelling the menacing sound of a power trio, to lovely obligato passages under the vocals, these ladies are everywhere. Glass Hammer has made amazing progress - as a BAND - since the Belmont Show, and that show floored me!
Third, the "Mountains as Metaphor" theme of the album speaks to me in many different ways. I was listening to track 5 I believe, driving up the Cumberland Plateau on I-24 yesterday, and found myself thinking about the time I went hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, around Long's Peak. It was a cool but bright sunny May day as we started, but as we got up to the shoulders of the peak it clouded over, and began to hail, just as we reached a shadowed hollow containing a lake, covered completely over in snow. That's one thing this album evoked immediately. For a guy that lived in Colorado, near the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, and (briefly) on Lookout Mountain, these metaphors hit me where I, ahem, lived. Even ignoring that my forebears came to the US from Switzerland.
Continuing on from here will be some thoughts on various tracks, posted on my website. There are SPOILERS.
