Gentle Art Of Music/Soulfood [Release date: 12.07.24]
Sylvan, alongside label stable-mates RPWL, have been at the forefront of German progressive rock since the release of their debut album ‘Deliverance’ in 1999 and have raised the bar with every subsequent release.
For lovers of progressive rock and, indeed, any genre of rock music, I urge you to make their acquaintance as their body of work is very impressive, bordering on genius at times.
The album that ‘broke’ them was probably ‘Posthumous Silence’ in 2006 which is excellent, but all are worthy of investigation and particularly their last three albums – my own favourite ‘Sceneries’ from 2012, ‘Home’ from 2015 and, their latest tour de force, ‘One To Zero’ from 2021.
‘Back To Live’ is the band’s first live album in sixteen years since 2008’s ‘Leaving Backstage’ and, great as that one was, this eclipses it by dint of sixteen years more experience and four more albums’ worth of material from which to draw.
Superbly recorded at the most famous prog venue in Europe, the Poppodium Borderij in Zoetermeer, Netherlands, ‘Back To Live’ is a twelve track double-album trawl through Sylvan’s back catalogue and provides fans of the band with fabulous live versions of some of their favourite tracks – and newcomers with a great introduction to this band’s oeuvre.
Unsurprisingly, the band draws on four tracks from last waxing ‘One To Zero’ (as they were touring that album post-Covid) and four tracks from the outstanding ‘Posthumous Silence’ – but, in all honesty, it must have been difficult to narrow it down to the twelve tracks showcased here, such is the wealth of material.
The band kick off with the eleven minutes-plus of ‘In Between’ from the ‘Home’ album – its classic prog tropes of quiet interludes breaking up the rifferama serving as a tasty amuse-bouche for the banquet to come.
Two from ‘One To Zero’ follow – ‘Encoded At Heart’ is one of the finest tracks off the latest album and its gentle piano intro and anthemic chorus has vocalist Marco Glühmann on top form and ‘Trust In Yourself’s acoustic and piano intro segués into a pounding riff.
The thirteen minutes of ‘Given, Used, Forgotten’ taken from 2004’s more obscure ‘X-Rayed’ album is as classic as progressive rock gets – with delicate piano cadences cut with piercing rock guitar courtesy of fretmeister Johnny Beck – pushing it to one of the highlights.
There’s highlights galore though – the heavy-duty ‘King Porn’, the ‘Nothing Else Matters’-alike ‘Part Of Me’, the staccato riff of ‘In Chains’, the scintillating guitar solo on ‘The Colors Changed’ and the chiming guitar balladry of ‘Heal’ are all of the highest quality.
The band close the deal with two from ‘Posthumous Silence’ – the anthemic ‘A Kind Of Eden’ blending into the title track of said album with Beck’s guitar bringing things to a blistering crescendo.
There is a minimum of crowd noise, bar the post-song applause, which is always a good thing as so many live albums are ruined by wankers shouting during the performance and, as mentioned earlier, the sound recording itself is absolutely putting you three rows from the front of a gig that must have been one hell of an experience.
How I wish I’d been there – but, as I wasn’t, this will definitely suffice.
As good as recorded live music gets really. *****
Review by Alan Jones
Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK
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Power Plays w/c 11 November 2024
ARCANE MOON Hello Sun (indie)
S8NT ELEKTRIC XTC (Long Branch Records)
ARCANA KINGS Here We Go (Curtain Call Records)
KLOGR face The Unknown (Zeta Factory)
BEYOND UNBROKEN Dance With The Dead (FiXT)
REVENGIN Decadent Feeling (Wormholedeath)
Featured Albums w/c 11 November 2024
09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Singer Songwriter)
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