pick-of-the-monthGlass Hammer Odecover ...a totally masterful prog album that continues the band's journey toward a more easily-accessible sound, retaining the artistry, poetry, and musicianship that they're known for.

Ode to Echo
Glass Hammer
www.glasshammer.com
Sound Resources / Arion Records
8 tracks / 53:46

With over a dozen projects produced over the past two decades, Glass Hammer has solidified their aural fingerprint, even with what sometimes seems like a revolving door of musicians and vocalists peripheral to the core creative elements of Fred Schendel (keyboards, guitars, backing vocals) and Steve Babb (bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals). The group extends its 20-year legacy with Ode to Echo, a totally masterful prog album that continues the band's journey toward a more easily-accessible sound, retaining the artistry, poetry, and musicianship that they're known for.

Sounding much more like a band than a Medieval Lit project these days, Glass Hammer still sends this reviewer to multiple Google searches with such esoteric titles as "Panegyric" and "Ozymandias," but the music on Ode to Echo is melodically streamlined and stays in your head. Particularly strong – and a good example of how this band has grown into a formidable prog-rock unit - is the opening track, "Garden of Hedon," a throbbing, dissonance-laced admonition (its title a delightful play on words) inviting the listener to "Taste, touch, see – appetite is everything... ...in Hedon you can always be king"

Themes of hedonism and fallen, self-proclaimed kings run through this project, but there are also moments of self-revelation like "Crowbone," a seven and a-half minute opus featuring an acoustic guitar introduction that's soon joined by piano and the distinctive violin of Kansas veteran, David Ragsdale. With lyrics that define us as "feathers on the breath of Gods," the song is a reminder of the dark side of the 'Garden of Hedon' introduced in the album's opening track.

All of this is heady stuff, but it's kept in check by tight arrangements and extraordinary playing. New drummer, Aaron Raulston is spectacular throughout, as is Kamran Alan Shikoh on electric, and all other types of guitars. Returning vocalist Carl Groves does a fine job as does Jon Davison and Susie Bogdanowicz, familiar names to those that have been keeping track over the years.

Typical of Glass Hammer, the album comes packaged with a generous booklet and features the art of Michal Xaay Loranc, whose work evokes Romantic Period paintings like those of John William Waterhouse. Earthy images for an earthy album.

Ode to Echo is another triumph for Glass Hammer, a band that's definitely found momentum and has reached its fighting weight - a force to reckon with in the sometimes ponderous world of prog.


-Bert Saraco
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