It is always sad when an act you enjoy thoroughly announce that their forthcoming work will be their last.
On 21st April, Nova Cascade release their fifth, and final, album, Box Man. It is not for a reviewer to second guess, or judge indeed, motivations of artists, so I will confine myself to saying that the progression of this journey has been a joy, and this album takes the ambition and creativity to a new level, and if the decision stands, and we respect it, they are most certainly going out on a high.
There are not many who have the guts, creative chutzpah, to open with an epic song lasting over twenty-eight minutes, but more to the point, provides the listener with a piece which flows as smoothly as The Towy River through the wee village I reside in. I played The Choice on my radio show of 25th January (you can listen to the podcast by going to https://progzilla.com/lazland-on-progzilla-radio-episode-16/), and the feedback from regular listeners was unanimously positive. There are songs more than half this length dragging a bit in parts. This one flows seamlessly from start to finish, and you don’t really grasp its length without checking. Although we are only in April, I might venture to suggest that this amazing piece of music has a more than evens chance of taking this website’s “Topographic Oceans Award”, given to acts who provide us with the uber-epic, named after the Yes album of the 1970’s with only four tracks over a double album.
Leader Dave Hilborne (vocals, keyboards, programming) is again joined by fellow founding member Dave Fick (bass), alongside Colin Powell (guitars, additional keys, bass on The Choice), and Nino Chikviladze (violin). Before we discuss the music, I have set out in a banner below the cover of this album – isn’t that just about the most gorgeous piece of art? Also, once again, all personal profits from the sales of this album will be donated to Pancreatic Cancer UK, in loving memory of their bandmate, the incredible Eric Bouillette.
We have seven pieces of music. Let’s go.
The Choice has eight distinct parts in the suite. It is something to be experienced and cherished, and I will, therefore, give you an oversight, a flavour of something which I deem to be essential for any discerning progressive music aficionado to own.
The piece was originally conceived in 1996, and the band have spent eight years refining and finalising this huge, sweeping, epic. From the opening short jam, the gorgeous violin kicks in, Chikviladze proving a worthy successor to Eric, Hilborne creating a mood which carries the listener away with him and the band, some lovely bass melodies, and Powell providing some delicate guitar notes, in a pastoral soundscape which engages. That is just the first three minutes, the initial (The Choice) sub-section, before pulsing notes presage The Signal, the violin crying.
Everything about this epic has you with it, changes in pace, with some drama very much to the fore in parts, hints of Americana, certainly Eastern European folk sensibilities in this achingly beautiful violin, English pastoral energy, symphonic in its reach, Powell contributing a mighty guitar solo and, at the heart of it all, the ability to create moods and musical conversations that I compared to Mike Oldfield at his finest when I reviewed the predecessor album, The Navigator, and which are, if anything, stronger, on this piece, going from calm to chaos when it is back to square one, the starkness of No Man’s Land, some crunching riffs crying out before segueing into some of the prettiest programming committed to disc and then the bleak majesty of the cold comfort to a grand finale.
The words you see here are about the fourth draft of the final review, and I have listened to this epic several times more. I always think the same thing as the final notes close out – blimey, was that really 28 minutes?
Smoking Gun follows, and the logo relates to MCMLVI, or 1956. The video of this is embedded below. As with the video to If You Don’t Succeed also presented to you on this review, you are immediately struck by the high production values. The introduction “pray I never forget” carries with it Hilborne’s trademark delicate and fragile voice before breaking out into a funk crazed excess alongside majestic keys. Powell provides a fine riff.
As said before, we also have a video for If You Don’t Succeed, and the obvious retort to that is, try, try again, and the film provides a playful reminder of that, the keys on a trancey loop, the piano insistently urging you on, another fine guitar riff, the robot playfully dancing along, but also carrying those contrasting quieter, thoughtful passages, the close with the footsteps very poignant.
Sentry, reminiscence of the front line, but also observations of a world in decline. The sound of war is always disturbing (I never did understand those who found war romantic) and so it is here, with a haunting guitar lead accompanying the shelling and shouting, the bass perfectly matching that, with Hilborne overlaying this with his keys, the vocals suitably mournful. A nice track which grows on you.
As It Was and Is follows, another instrumental. The opening is dramatic, the percussion at the forefront alongside the welcome return of the violin, the piano then accompanying in a sublime lead duet. Powell contributes then a pacy guitar lead, and the sound from this song fills the room in something I visualise being played to a silent audience at a theatre show, the protagonists reluctantly moving away at opposite ends of the stage, the intensity building to a flourish.
The title track follows, and you can, incidentally, hear this on my radio show this coming Saturday (19th April). The church organ presents such a dramatic introduction, again the sound all around you, the story of the low status of the wanderer, yet one that strangely attracts, two worlds colliding, the man himself on the cover looking at the cards life has dealt him, whilst opposite, the very picture of opulence, power, salvation even, within reach, but at the same time beyond comprehension. This touching song reminds me of the first time I ever saw a “gentleman of the road”. It was whilst we were visiting my grandparents in Shropshire, and I was quite young. The first day, I was with my late mother, who advised us to stay away from the dirty old man when my sister & I enquired about him from across the road. The next day, I was with my grandmother. She crossed the road and gave him some money. These are memories which combine extreme sadness and compassion, and Nova Cascade’s music has the ability to prompt this. I will seriously miss them. Powell and Fick both demonstrate just what supreme masters they are of their craft on this track.
And so, we close with The End of the Line, an instrumental just over five minutes long. You would think it would be a mournful creature, but, no, it is a celebration of the work of this fine band, the tempo uplifting, the soundscape created by Hilborne reflective, the bass melody insistent, much of it upbeat, Powell pushing matters along very nicely.
The nature of mortality means that all journeys come to an end. I think the final track is the way I would like to remember Nova Cascade, a song which has a great deal of space to contemplate a body of work, a job well done, if you will. When one reflects on an existence, do you regret, or do you think, know what? That were a bloody good effort that. Well, Nova Cascade, that were, indeed, a bloody good effort.
Thank you for some wonderful music. To buy this album, please take yourselves off to https://novacascade.bandcamp.com/album/box-man-2