WARM ENGLISH PROGRESSIVE ROCK

Brendan Perkins is a prog composer and multi-instrumentalist who has been recording and engineering music across four decades.

He recently contacted me with an advance copy of his next album, Galatea’s Holiday, which is released on 3rd November. Take a look at https://brendanperkins.bandcamp.com/album/galateas-holiday for further information.

I really like this album. It is above all warm, overwhelmingly English, a pleasure to listen to and escape from the stresses of modern life, surely one of music’s supreme functions. There are seven tracks, and I discuss each of them here.

We open with I Will Come Home, also the longest piece at just over six and a half minutes long. The bassline is instantly noticeable together with a pleasant soundscape introducing the vocals, which are poetic. This is one of two tracks Brendan has released on Bandcamp prior to the album release, and I embed it below. As much as I moan about the weather in our beloved land, there are some beautifully unspoilt areas across the UK, and Perkins, I think, brings a sense of that fragile countryside to this song, although the lyrics do also hint at something a wee bit more personal, almost using that beauty as an escape from some trauma, but with the firm intent of returning. The midpoint segment, which is sumptuous, recalls classic symphonic songs of yore. An opener I have grown to enjoy a great deal as a pastoral delight.

This is followed by Holiday. No, not a cover of the Madge “classic” (I can hear the groans from here!), but again something born of trekking across our wonderful land. The guitar lead is strong, and the bass melodies are deep and rich, a feature across this album, with a distinct funk vibe that guarantees head nodding and toe tapping. Doing things their own way (perhaps also a metaphor for modern progressive musicians who don’t have the commercial appeal of yesteryear, but certainly have the talent and love for their craft), a song which tells a story of avoiding the corporate tourist trap and feeling all the better for it. The guitar solo two minutes in is distinct and quite lovely, dripping with emotion before entering a heavenly jazz denouement.

The wonderfully named Ha Ha Asupa-Ta is four minutes of music featuring some nice key and percussive effects overlaid by pretty chords which take you up an ambient level with a healthy dose of musical mysticism before that mood is cleverly shattered by a banjo bringing a sense of deep south USA which sits interestingly alongside the gorgeous soundscape created by the keys. Interesting, for sure.

Beauty in the Skies follows this. Playing at a gorgeous seaside town, and then heading off from the railway station for a crazy city for another crazy show, this track reminds me of when I virtually lived out of my suitcase and a train seat with work, not that long ago. There is a wonderfully subdued guitar riff in the background to start with behind the lyrics, before that bass enters again with an expansion of the sound for the Finally Here Again sequence, and repeat. It is those contrasting sound dynamics which make this track so interesting, and the guitar work is especially good in what is, on the first couple of listens a simple composition, but reveals its complexities and progressive heart with repeated concentration.

This Painting is the shortest track on the album, a pleasant paeon to a special image and a song which thoroughly deserves wider airplay on mainstream radio. The warmth of the vocals is simply divine to this reviewer’s ears and the joy of music is expressed in the instrumental segment prior to the closing words.

The Summer Walk is the penultimate track and is an instrumental work. It is the second of the pieces made available prior to release and I have embedded it below. Enjoy the sound of a musician creating a pastiche of our beautiful land, walking along the Downs, or Cumbria, or the South Shropshire Hills, or local to me, The National Botanic Gardens of Wales, and whilst immersing yourself in these sounds, especially the haunting guitar work, hope that our glorious leaders don’t build over all of it.

We close with Calm Waters, Cradle Light. When you buy this wonderful album, put your headphones on at the end of a hard day’s work. Close your eyes. Take a sip of that well deserved drinkie and let this wash over you. Visualise the lighthouse, the multitude of life, the still, calm waters, and the joy of life.

I started this website latish in life, having reviewed for Prog Archives over an extended period. Galatea’s Holiday is precisely the type of album I wanted to highlight here, an honest album which simply brings happiness, a deep sense and appreciation of life, with intelligent words and exceptional musicianship. It is a pleasure and an honour to be able to write about it and to state that it really does come highly recommended.