My first thought upon listening to Warm Winter by Memories Of Machines was that it’s very similar to
Steven Wilson’s softer side. My second thought was that the vocalist sounds an awful lot like Wilson’s old No-Man partner Tim Bowness. Turns out, it IS Tim Bowness singing. He formed this band with multi-instrumentalist Giancarlo Erra of Italian art rock band Nosound (maybe they should have called this new band “No-No,” no?). One song, “Beautiful Songs You Should Know” even appears on a No-Man album, albeit a different version. The dream pop they spin here is right down Bowness’ alley and it’s pleasant enough—very consistently so, in fact—but I keep waiting for it to achieve lift-off and it never does. Wilson is on here as well as Peter Hammill (Van der Graf Generator), and Robert Fripp supplies the rich electronic backwash on “Lost and Found in the Digital World” but none of this is enough to give the album those truly memorable moments. That said, it’s the only element missing. Perhaps they’ll find it on the follow up.
Warm Winter went on sale last summer from Mascot Records.
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