Returned to the Earth release Stalagmite Steeple, their fifth studio album. In 2022, Fall of the Watcher, was a particular favourite of mine, and you can read my review by clicking on the button below.
This album is a child of Covid, but I like the way that creator Robin Peachey has written not just about the virus, but the wider societal issues which surrounded that period, and that is still very relevant in 2024, certainly listening to the radio during this general election period where the controversies which accompanied the government have clearly had an impact upon voter’s opinions of the governing party, something which is hardly surprising.
Rightly, one of the main focusses of the pandemic was the shocking situation where elderly people were in care or residential homes. The first three tracks on this album have that as a backdrop, a man separated from his wife who is in a home. She passed away from natural causes, and the family were distraught at not being able to be with her when she passed. This represented a shocking lack of empathy and compassion by the home she resided in, and what makes this so real is the fact that this is a family known to Robin. It was one, sadly, repeated the length and breadth of the UK, whilst our politicians glibly partied, and the public ranted on social media one way or the other. It is fair to say that this period did not show humanity in its finest light, but the intelligence shown by Peachey most certainly does.
So, we begin with Dark Morality. What a title. The opening notes are a gentle, pastoral delight, with birds singing in the background, so I can envisage in this the lady staring out at the trees from her room. Straight away, the quality of the recording is obvious, and I think Robin has one of the most expressive voices in modern progressive music, oozing with feeling. “Like a ghost, you walk the halls”. Before we removed my late father-in-law from a care home to care for him in the family home, this was the overwhelming impression I had of many of the residents, ghostly forms aimlessly wondering in a sad daze, so these words are right on the button. The minimalist music accompanying this is perfect, the dark morality of the forcing of medicines down the unfortunates and then left to their own devices. It broke our hearts, and that is why we put a stop to it. I recognise this world, and it is so stark. Two minutes in, there is such a delicate guitar solo, and a pretty bass melody before the pace picks up, but still a gentle pastiche of this world, the two Peachey brothers and Johnstone so obviously comfortable in their playing together. The later main guitar riff expertly portrays the sadness and waste so very well, and as the track builds to its conclusion the anger rightly bursts through, for the right money, we shall take your life. As a piece of art rock rooted in the human experience, this track really does take some beating. A video has been released, and it is embedded below.
The Final Time follows this, a mournful five-minute piece of music, with sorrowful orchestration and vocals addressing the final time the subject closed her eyes and faded from the world and her loved ones. The guitar cries out the pain and emotion in a song which is heartbreakingly beautiful.
The title track ends this story, it being a couple of seconds short of the epic length. Staring from the window, seeing the steeple in the mists of a befogged mind, and this is at the heart of this gorgeous piece, the loss of a human personality, piano, guitar, orchestration achingly sad, the guitar work especially emotive, with the keys soaring above in a lament for a life and the circumstances in which it ends, the loneliness as the world outside is shut and she looks into another life, the orchestration really bringing this to the fore alongside Robin’s guitar work which is simply marvellous, the collective cleverly bringing the intensity up several notches without you really noticing until it hits you in the final fifth, some delicate choral noises serving as a perfect backdrop to the guitar crying above the band pushing matters along. Simply brilliant, and a contender for the epic of the year on this website’s annual awards (we can forgive the couple of seconds!).
There are three tracks remaining on what would have been side two of the vinyl, and these deal with wider societal issues. We start with Meaningless To Worth, which has a dark electronica feel to the opening passage, the lyrics I think exhorting the writer and us to not give up, to turn the ridiculous into something positive, no matter how much we are driven down, especially by what we see on the television which fills the room, and there are some suitably Floydian effects of this in the background, before the final third of this track brings with it a musical sunrise, something Genesis in their pomp would have been proud to produce, the worth of humanity rising from the ashes of despair exemplified by the guitar rising and rising, a gorgeous mix of the symphonic and pastoral underneath.
Die for Me. Did our leaders deliberately ask this of sections of the population? Not merely the elderly, but also frontline workers so inadequately protected against the impact of those they cared for? This is not a loud, angry, post punk noise, but the inherent unfairness is portrayed just as effectively by one of the finest melodious prog acts around now, with some more orchestration setting the mood, but with the pace picking up considerably halfway through when the lyrics inform us that the dream is over, and a piano and solitary bass notes bring us all to a thoughtful considered place, the guitar very expressive introducing us to the final third which begins to bring together the family and societal themes very well, the riffs darkening and providing an anger – it shouldn’t be this way, and Peachey is right, the drums thumping underneath that simple message, the guitar solo screaming at the bastards who let us all down. Simply incredible.
It closes with The Raging Sea, where this dual theme is brought to its natural conclusion. Immediately, the musical mood is different, almost a slab of Americana hitting us, Peachey singing of washed-up memories turning in their graves, and by God, how many were? There is a fine bassline on this, gentle percussion, and reverb guitar creating a delicate, yet powerful soundscape, asking questions of how both the family and all of us faced the raging sea and what will become of all of us. The guitar solo which takes us into the closing segment drips with feeling, reminding me of Gilmour in his finest blues-infused moments. The final minute soars and sears its way into the consciousness, consuming us all.
I have said more than a few times on this website that we are fortunate to be living in a musical era I believe is unsurpassed. Yes, of course, acts such as Returned to the Earth take their inspiration from that original art and progressive rock era that commenced in the late 1960’s, but that is all. This is a work absolutely of the third decade of the 21st century. Intelligent, incredibly moving throughout, and an important statement and record of a terribly difficult period in our recent history, I can only really advise you all to take yourselves over to GEP at https://gep.co.uk/products/returned-to-the-earth-stalagmite-steeple-pre-order and cop a hold of a copy.
What an album! What a year 2024 is!