Evolving Seeds of Glory is an hour of inspirational prog that can be enjoyed with or without your own spiritual involvement
Evolving Seeds of Glory
David Wallimann
8 tracks / 53:56
Evolving Seeds of Glory is an adventurous solo project by David Wallimann, with a little help from his friends - and what friends! More about that later. Unquestionably fitting comfortably in the progressive rock genre, Wallimann, who wrote, produced, and played pretty much everything except the bass and drums, gives us a very personal instrumental project. In fact, the eight songs, according to the liner notes, were inspired by contemplation and ‘evening prayers.’ Just don’t expect lullabies for babies to drift off to sleep by….
Musically, the sound of Evolving Seeds of Glory falls somewhere between Glass Hammer and The Neal Morse Band. In fact, Glass Hammer’s Fred Schendel offers a synth solo on “I Turn To You,” Neal Morse co-conspirator Eric Gillette (who’s just released his own fine prog album, The Great Unknown) plays a powerful guitar solo on the same song, and the ubiquitous Randy George puts his powerful bass guitar stamp all over the album! Add former Spock’s Beard member Nick D’Virgilio on drums and you have a powerhouse core of musicians making an awful lot of big, powerful music.
As mentioned earlier, this is an instrumental album but Wallimann clearly expresses his faith and suggests that the listener enter into the music in a reflective way. Each song has an accompanying few lines of verse on the album artwork to set up a spiritual, but non-specific framework for the listener. Finally, the album is dedicated to ‘my Lord and Savior, who revealed Himself to me…’
The music is at various times melodic and moving, powerful and dramatic, heavy and intricate, soaring and majestic, and often dazzlingly skillful. D’Virgilio’s drumming is intricate and finds ways of creating patterns that you wouldn’t expect. The reliable Randy George traverses the entire length of his bass’s fretboard and creates stunning, melodic runs that suddenly end in rock-hard thumping musical bedrock. The guitar work – the bulk of which belongs to Wallimann – soars, rips, and swells where needed, and the keys create orchestral sounds that fill out and surround the compositions. Evolving Seeds of Glory is a powerful progressive rock project but resists stepping over the line to prog-metal. The powerful drumming, thumping bass, and head-whirling guitar runs are all there but it’s tempered by a sense of melody that won’t allow things to get out of hand.
Wallimann’s Evolving Seeds of Glory is an hour of inspirational prog that can be enjoyed with or without your own spiritual involvement …but, hey – give God a chance to get in the action – you won’t believe His chops.
Bert Saraco
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