Glass Hammer, riding a wave of interest as its lead singer also serves a stint in Yes, is set to issue an epic new project called Perilous on October 23, 2012 — the American prog rock act’s most ambitious concept album yet.
Singer Jon Davison, who joined Glass Hammer in 2009, began a tandem assignment fronting Yes earlier this year. But Davison said from the beginning that he intended to continue working with his old band, which started in 1992.
The results promise to delight and surprise long-time fans, according to co-founding member Steve Babb.
Babb tells Prog Rock magazine that their new studio project will be presented as one musical idea, broken up into 13 parts.
The album cover itself also represents a departure from Glass Hammer, which has more recently used fantasy-based imagery more in keeping with classic Yes. Perilous instead features a gothic-inspired ringmaster, who seems to be welcoming the listener into a spooky netherworld.
“It should be obvious from the art and the title that something dire is lurking just beyond that gate,” Babb tells Martin Kielty of Prog Rock. “Imagine two children lost in a cemetery at night and the unsavory characters they might meet as they try to find their way home. That’s the setting for our allegory.”
Though Davison has gotten the bulk of the press lately, the scope and pure imaginative wonder of this album concept illustrates that Glass Hammer — which is rounded out by Fred Schendel and Alan Shikoh — continues as an entity unto itself.
“There is no denying the ‘Yes factor’ has increased interest worldwide, and that’s fine with us,” Babb says, “but our big news for 2012 will still be Perilous. We set out to make something epic, and something distinctly Glass Hammer: never afraid to show our influences, while developing a sound that is undeniably ours alone.”
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