A remarkable meeting of minds, The Sea Within features the combined talents of Roine Stolt (Flower Kings), Jonas Reingold (Flower Kings, Karmakanic), Tom Brislin (Yes, Renaissance), Marco Minnemann (Steven Wilson, Joe Satriani) Casey McPhereson (Flying Colours) and Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of salvation). The recording process for the album took roughly six months with each member contributing ideas and elements. A remarkably ego-free project that manages, quite remarkably, to be even greater than the sum of its parts, The Sea Within draws on hard rock, jazz, prog and pop to deliver something truly special. Released via InsideOut Records, it is the first outing of a band that both promises, and delivers, great things.
Opening with the sinister, cinematic ‘Ashes of Dawn’, the Sea Within rapidly emerge from the sound of lapping water and an orchestral haze to deliver a surprisingly heavy prog experience that sits somewhere between Flower Kings, Dream Theater, Genesis and King Crimson. Forward thinking, but with a strong affection for the past, it’s a muscular and exhilarating opening track that gives Daniel Gildenlow plenty of opportunity to demonstrate his skills as a vocalist. Roine Stolt, meanwhile, delivers the typically elegant and fluid guitar work we’ve come to expect from him. It makes for one hell of a start, and by the time we reach the sax solo (Rob Townsend), you’ll either be utterly hooked or feel compelled to run a thousand miles from a band so unafraid to run with their instincts. A rather more sedate and atmospheric track follows in the form of the haunting ‘They know my name’, a track that offers up rich harmonies, initially subtle keys (set to explode into a full-blown synth solo) and addictive melodies. A shorter track, ‘the void’ harks back to Gabriel-era Genesis, the slightly gruff vocal awash with emotion, the track evocative of a misty morning, the landscape underfoot alive with mystery and occasional hints of menace. The first half of the album comes to a surprisingly energetic close with the fast paced, hard-rocking ‘an eye for an eye for an eye’. Although the exemplary musicianship remains (not least in a mid-point jazz breakdown), it’s good to hear the band unload a full-bore rocker with such impulsive energy and the blazing energy is addictive, quickening the pulse even in the home-listening environment – live it will be a blast!
The first of three tracks to feature the vocal talents of Casey McPhereson, ‘goodbye’ offers up some of the album’s most remarkable soloing alongside a typically energetic and evocative performance from Casey. The short, sweet ‘sea without’ is little more than a segue, awash with jazz elements, leading towards ‘broken chord’, a track that features both Casey McPhereson and Jon Anderson on vocals. A dense, fourteen-minute epic, the track opens upon a whimsical note, harmonised lead guitars and Beatles-esque vocals providing an entry into a piece that goes on to encompass a huge amount of territory. With Marco Minneman once again demonstrating that he’s one of the finest drummers in progressive rock today, ‘Broken chord’ moves fluidly across the musical landscape, the band incorporating jazz, psychedelia and sunny, sixties-style pop into a spellbinding piece of music that will leave your jaw hanging on its hinges. After so epic a track, album closer, ‘the hiding of truth’, feels very much like a credits roll with Jordan Rudess’ grand piano and sweeping strings recalling the emotive songs used in 80s movie soundtracks. It’s a strangely sedate conclusion, but it’s also strangely fitting for so filmic an album.
The album also comes with a bonus CD featuring four additional tracks, the first of which is the gloriously funky ‘the roaring silence’, which pits fast-paced percussion, taut bass runs and soaring guitars against one another in a display of breath-taking virtuosity that recalls Dan Reed Network covering Genesis. The rather more whimsical ‘where are you going?’, with its processed vocals and flickering keys is pure, old-school progressive rock with a Yes / Steve Thorne vibe. It’s followed by the elegant, echoing ‘time’, which filters Porcupine and Radiohead through a dark, trippy lens to create an atmospheric and immersive piece of music. The final track, ‘Denise’, harks close to the dark, harder edge sound of the Ray Wilson fronted Genesis with its subtly distorted vocal and brutally minimalist synth. A somewhat downbeat closer with the rich, quasi-orchestral sounds of the Mellotron adding yet further weight to the music, it closes the shades on a richly textured and varied album.
With so much talent in the band, the Sea Within was never going to be simply middle-of-the-road. As it happens, each of the musicians involved checked their ego at the studio door and the result is an astonishing and evocative album that roams free across a landscape dotted with prog, rock, jazz and pop references. Unafraid to lay down heavy riffs when required (just check out monstrous opener ‘Ashes of Dawn’ or ‘eye for an eye for an eye’) and equally capable of moments of gentle beauty, what is most apparent is the joyful collaboration between the various members involved. Despite stiff competition from the likes of Spock’s Beard, The Sea Within looks likely to be the prog album of the year and it comes highly recommended indeed. 9
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