It’s an album that appears to have divided with the fanbase; although it’s been well-received by the majority, there’s a vocal minority that still strongly dislike it. I suppose this is inevitable for any band that refuses to tread water musically; this work is definitely not a retread of any period of the band’s past. It’s not a repeat of “Storms Over Still Water” or “Passengers”, nor is it return to the style of the much loved (by some) early albums.
Saying that, it is probably their most varied album since their 1996 debut. Opener “Fading Colours” has to be the most powerful hard rocker Mostly Autumn have ever recorded. A few bars at the beginning strongly recall Rainbow’s “Eyes of the World”, and the rest of the song has a similar feel. Other highlights are the lengthy “Walk With a Storm”, part epic hard rocker, part electifying celtic jig featuring guest musicians Peter Knight and Troy Donockley on violin and uilleann pipes, Heather’s heartfelt “Half a World”, and the achingly sad “Find the Sun”, also featuring Peter Knight’s violin.
Several songs break new ground for the band, such as the sparse “Broken”, just piano and Heather’s voice, and Chris Johnson’s hauntingly beautiful “Silver Glass”. Then there’s the largely instrumental “Further from Home”, six minutes of Bryan Josh putting that blue Stratocaster through it’s paces, and sounding like all the best bits of Dave Gilmour’s “On an Island” compressing into a single song.
The plodding sub-Oasis “Pocket Watch” is the album’s only real dud. There are hundreds of other interchangeable bands doing this sort of three chord nonsense, and Mostly Autumn shouldn’t be wasting their time trying to copy them.
Other quibbles are minor; I’d like to have heard more of Angela Gordon’s flute, which is almost completely absent this time around. And a couple of songs, such as “Ghost” and the closing epic “Dreaming” might have benefitted from a little more time polishing up the arrangments. But overall it’s a very strong album, even if it’s not quite the masterpiece I believe the band are capable of. If “Storms Over Still Water” marked a step change in Bryan Josh’s guitar playing, this one shows the same sort of improvement in Heather’s lead vocals; I’ve never heard her sing better. And Chris Johnson has proved that he can fill the role of third songwriter left by the departure last year of Iain Jennings.
