Album review: ARC OF LIFE – Don’t Look Down
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Frontiers [Release date: 18.11.22]
Arc Of Life is a Progrock supergroup, arguably. In order of fame : Jon (Yes) Davison, Billy (Yes/ World Trade) Sherwood, Jay (Unruly Child) Schellen, Dave (Sound Of Contact) Kerzner and Jimmy (Air Supply/ Circa) Haun. There’s a lot of intersection going on there. For example Billy Sherwood and Jimmy Haun are bandmates in the Prog band, Circa; Jay Schellen is Yes’s touring drummer, and so on.
Progrock : There’s the impenetrable, technically awesome type, then there’s the melodic, rhythmic type, where the dynamic of time signatures and arrangements are only there to reflect a change in mood or subject matter.
Both the album and the title track, ‘Don’t Look Down’ fit firmly into the latter category, at times straying well into melodic rock territory. Davison and Sherwood share perfectly pitched vocal duties, while Haun and Kerzner weave some musical magic with their inventive guitar/keyboard interplay.
It’s probably true of all the tracks here but particularly of ‘All Things Considered’ and ‘Let Live’ that we can hear clear echoes of Mr Mister and perhaps more obviously, Third Matinee. This is powerful, thoughtful stuff, pulsing with dreamy, slow motion hooks, sprinkled with majestic AOR moments, and enjoying that frequent switch back and forth between genres.
The lightly textured, musically satisfying ‘Colors Come Alive’ and the 18 minute ‘Arc Of Life’ are polar opposites, creating room for a diversity of Progrock fans… the type that like to drift away, and the type that like the challenge and complexity of unorthodox thinking. ****
Review by Brian McGowan
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