Review – Hillward – Flies In Amber Stones – by Stephen Bowden

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This Canadian trio (David Lizotte on guitars and vocals, Jean-François Boudreault on Bass and Antoine Guertin on drums) started life as a side project of Québecois progressive power metallers Southern Cross (no, me neither). ‘Flies Trapped in Amber Stones’ is their debut album.

Right from the crunching guitar chords that kick in near the start of the opening (title) track you know you’re listening to a band that can play their instruments more than competently, and who work together tightly. The sound is guitar driven, but the core sound is supplemented by keyboards at just the right moments to provide a richer sound palette. The short guitar solo in the second track, Alive, is placed just where you want it, and it doesn’t outstay its welcome.

So why am I not in raptures about this album? I think it may be that, in pursuit of the technical and musical competence that Hillward bring to their music, they have forgotten, or perhaps simply suppressed, their hearts and souls. The third track, One Goodbye is a quieter, more contemplative track, but it is so, so predictable. From the first listen I felt I could predict every move it made, and six or seven spins later it hasn’t yielded up any more depth or richness.

As song follows song, you realise that the band are ploughing a narrow musical furrow. Lizotte’s voice is clear and in tune, but has limited range, both in terms of octaves and emotions. I’m not sure what I should be feeling as I listen to The Missing Link, but I don’t think that the band’s intention was that I should feel that I’d heard this all already on this album, and was likely to hear it again in a few songs time.

And then there are the lyrics. The fifth track Entropy is absolved from criticism on this point, as it is a two minute instrumental which feels like some riffage that coudn’t be fitted into a proper song, but, elsewhere the lyrics are somewhat uninspiring; the songs don’t come across as being about anything important.

The longest song on the album, When it All Comes True (all six and a half minutes of it) might as well be The Missing Link or Alive all over again, here Lizotte asks “does life mean more than words do, silly words learned and repeated too? Does tragedy mean more than poetry?” Then, in Quiescence, another slower, moodier track he asks “what if we never cross the line, what if we never grow old on time, what is love if it keeps us apart?” The short instrumental that follows, Quantify the Abstract, does little to answer any of these questions, but I’m not sure that I ever cared.

Perhaps I am sounding too negative here. I certainly don’t dislike this album, and the penultimate track, Walls of Apathy, is really rather good, at least in part because it introduces another voice, that of Melanie Gagné from fellow Québecois band, Muted Screams. Gagné adds the layers of emotion and aural variety that have been lacking in the earlier tracks.

Yet Hillward are playing in the same musical territory as, say, Haken and Anekdoten, and not far from Riverside. ‘Flies in Amber Stones’, for all its undoubted strengths, offers me no reason to listen to it rather than ‘The Mountain’ or ‘Until All The Ghosts Are Gone’.

The album closes strongly with The End of Logic, and perhaps there is some good advice in the title. ‘Flies in Amber Stones’ sounds just too much as if it had been written to a formula. Hillward are technically excellent. Perhaps they just need to throw off the creative shackles they appear to be labouring under and find some ideas and emotions to invest in their song-writing and playing.

It’s not as if there isn’t precedent here. I can think of at least one other Canadian trio who followed a competent but routine debut with more than forty years of greatness…….

Released 25th September 2015

Buy Flies In amber Stones from bandcamp

About the Author – Stephen Bowden

Stephen Bowden

By day Stephen toils at the bureaucratic coalface, fashioning red tape into enabling and empowering frameworks of policy and compliance. At night he sleeps fitfully, dreaming of weasels and the Forest of Broceliande.

Wallet Emptier – 29/9/15

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Nad Sylvan – Courting the Widow

Better known recently as the voice behind Steve Hackett’s ‘Genesis Revisited’ live show, Nad has had a varied career as a solo musician and as part of the musical projects Unifaun and Agents Of Mercy. ‘Courting the Widow’ is his first solo effort since 2005 and was quite a revelation to me. It is full of traditional progressive rock pointers yet it is Nad’s voice that carries the album all the way through. A concept album about his stage persona, The Vampyre. Featuring a plethora of guest musicians including Steve Hackett, Nick BeggsRoine STolt and Nick D’Virgilio if you like well written, story driven music (and a touch of Genesis), you’ll love this.

Released 16th October 2015 (EU)

Stand Out Track – Long Slow Crash Landing

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David Gilmour

David Gilmour – Rattle That Lock

Pink Floyd’s guitar maestro releases his first solo album since ‘On an Island’ and it is a good one. There’s been a lot of discussion about the prominence of the older, established artists recently and how they are perhaps taking the attention from the new and up and coming acts (I put my hand up to being one who is worried by it) but, surely, they can exist together. If these older, nostalgic acts weren’t around, what music would we have listened to in the first place? Nothing new or different but polished and comfortable, like your favourite shoes, I find myself returning to it quite frequently.

Released 18th September 2015

Stand out track – And Then…..

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Hillward – Flies in Amber Stones

Canadian band Hillward started off as Southern Cross’ side project with three of its members, David Lizotte, Jean-François Boudreault and Antoine Guertin. The band became one of its own when Alexandre Lapierre joined as a second guitar player after the recording of the first album ‘Flies In Amber Stones’.

Progressive metal with alternative undertones, its powerful and dynamic sound is really quite addictive as it pulses and resounds with heavy riffs, potent drumming and aggressive vocals.

Released 25th September 2015

Stand out track – Flies in Amber Stones

Buy direct from the artist

 

Perfect Beings II cover image lg CMYK

Perfect Beings – Perfect Beings II

The eagerly awaited follow up to 2014’s eponymous debut album is a cornucopia of progressive, classical, experimental, ambient, jazz and pop influences that create the band’s unique style. Emotive and full of energy it is the fruit of 2014’s live performances and the way that playing live tightened up the band’s sound and evolved them into a tighter unit.

Perhaps a tad incohesive and self-indulgent in places, it is still, nevertheless, a great Prog-Rock release.

Released 16th October 2015

Stand out track – The Love Inside

Pre-order Perfect Beings II direct from the band’s website

 

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Australia’s Caligula’s Horse release their third album of raw, honest, and yet skillful, progressive, alternative rock. Vibrant and dynamic, the band are like a force of nature and their music is not for the faint hearted whilst being energetic, grand and forthright.

This is their most vivid, vibrant and emotional work to date and should see them break through and become one of the leading lights of the genre, full of colour and life.

Released 16th October 2015 (EU)

Stand out track – Dragonfly

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Blast from the past…..

Kinetic Element – Powered by Light

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Following my review of the band’s ‘Travelog’ album last week, I have the pleasure of introducing their first release from 2009. ‘Powered by Light’ follows in the tradition of the progressive rock giants of the 1970s, heavy with symphonic keyboards and virtuoso guitar work, Kinetic Element takes the listener on a lightspeed journey of the heart, full of great evocative passages.

Released 2009

Stand out track – Reconciliation

Buy Powered by Light from MRR