A swift follow-up to last year’s Vanaprastha, ARMCHAIR GODS duo Paul Kearns and Steve Peckover return with Doubt The Stars, another outstanding collection of chilled and meditative progressive rock instrumentals, here with a cosmic backdrop both musically and thematically in what they describe as a sonic celestial odyssey.
Indeed, it opens with Odyssey reflecting the journey into space after leaving earth, awed by the majesty of the stars and feeling insignificant in the scheme of things, flowing into the darker sounding and turbulence threatening Argo Navis, named for a constellation of stars, with its pulsing keyboard tempests and heavy drum beats transposing the myth of Jason and the Argonauts into space conjuring with the initial siren’s call and then the sea god Triton holding back the clashing rocks to provide safe passage.
Passing through the storm, things become calm with the ebb and flow of Ataraxia, named for the term meaning calmness untroubled by mental or emotional disquiet, the drums kicking back in for Requiem, a number fuelled by anger at the contradiction of how humanity can create something like the James Webb telescope and yet still be mired waging medieval barbaric wars, the piece composed of two states representing a star moving violently though its life cycle before burning out, the monastic chant element taking its influence from Mozart's Requiem while the soaring guitar solo midway was improvised in a single take.
Echoing the time portal motif at the start of Ataraxia but revisited with different instrumentation, Portal II is a 30 second transition into the serene synth-strings opening title track, which, with drums and losing guitar solo and , is a collaboration with Derbyshire-based singer/songwriter Carol Fieldhouse who also provides the pure crystalline hymnal vocals (reminding me of Maggie Reilly on Mike Oldfield’s Moonlight Shadow)the words inspired by Shakespeare’s poem “Doubt thou the stars are fire” and the beliefs of his day and exploring the relationship between ourselves and the perception of enduring truth in the aim of bringing light and hope to the shade.
It ends with the steady marching beat and keyboard swirls of Red Shift Dawn, a musically stirring, guitar cloud surfing celebration of the James Webb Telescope mission, looking back in time at red shifted starlight from the very first stars created just after the big bang. Resisting the prog-rock tendency for long, self-indulgent pieces, only one track runs anything approaching five minutes, creating a seamless flow that creates its intended impression before moving on. Like the space mission it conjures, this feels like just the start of a voyage into the vastness of the galactic horizons, long may they boldly go.
MARK LEMON doffs the cap to the Carry On films on his infectious singalong new single All The Carry On Stars (which, he in leather jacket, comes with a great video with 60s clips, www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ch7IT0TyRU) celebrating its saucy double entendres.
ELIZABETH J BIRCH is what might be called alt-folktronica, using synths and loops to create the textures and melodies that enfold her words. Her latest self-released excursion is Kenopsia, which means the eerie atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but now abandoned, a definition that well captures the atmosphere she weaves as her voice swoops and soars across and between the music. Available from Bandcamp (https://elizabethjbirch.bandcamp.com), it’s an eight track set that opens with the title number, moving through the cosmic drift of Barely to the stabbing pulses of Night Turned Morning by way of the turbulent Wallpaper m the underwater ambience of Come Home and the heavy electric storm of the instrumental closer Stages One, Two and Three. You might detect traces of Kate Bush and the enigmatic quality of the lyrics, but Birch is very much a singular voice.
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