To these modern ears, Isildurs Bane and Peter Hammill’s In Amazonia is classic and vital progressive-rock music.
To be honest, this music requires a stretched attention span — the kind that wished for at least four more sides of Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans or 40 minutes more (and an even more convoluted story) for Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
So, let’s cut to the quick, much like any Rikki Nadir tune, and state the simple truth: The song “This is Where?” (the fourth track) begins with a Larks’ Tongues thumb piano-like vibes and a Fripp-ian heavy ink-blotter guitar groan, then it propels into warp drive tension, with all prog pedals floored.
No understatement here: Lazarus is alive again, because this throws a dart right into the revived heart of Van der Graaf Generator’s masterpiece “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers,” with maximum confused beauty or, perhaps, beautiful confusion. Yeah, it’s that good! In fact, it’s 10 minutes plus of that good!
But to backtrack, the first song, “Before You Know It,” is an opening salvo of purpose. A koto plucks a bit, and then Peter Hammill delivers his dramatic vocal, while big keyboards surround the Orwellian vibe. And then the tune simply explodes with a blood-rushed urgent rock pulse. This punches a stake into Ophelia’s heart.
Odd: there’s an Eastern vibe in the song with the ending koto played by Karin Nakagawa. But, that very same koto sound was used by Hammill himself in his very difficult, but beautifully rewarding album, … All That Might Have Been ….
Well, in fact, for Peter Hammill acolytes, In Amazonia does echo that solo album, but it is elevated into a higher level of prog-rock heaven with the added paint brushed colors of the Swedish band Isildurs Bane, whose street cred rivals any late-’70s prog-rock symphonic/chamber vinyl footprints.
Speaking of whom, Isildurs Bane is no slouch of a sparring partner for the iconic Hammill. They are a great prog band that has kept the votive candle alive since the ’80s. Early albums like Sagan Om Ringen echo Trespass-era Genesis and Snowgoose Camel.
With Cheval and the brown suitcase-packaged The Voyage: A Trip to Elsewhere, Isildurs Bane morphed into prog chamber rock, before venturing into their adventurous Mind series. And Mind, in case you are wondering, stands for “Music Investigating New Dimensions.” And, in case you are wondering (again!), that’s prog code for really oddball sounds that, if given patient time, create melodic synapsing in the brain.
Another history lesson: Peter Hammill is the vocalist extraordinaire of Van der Graaf Generator, and is truly one of the greats of British prog who (thankfully) never really found his Phil Collins / Genesis radio-friendly groove. Hammill’s solo catalog is brilliant and immense. For the novice, try The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage, Sitting Targets, Thin Air, or From the Trees. But that’s just scratching the universe’s strange surface.
That settled, two other songs, “Under the Current” and “Aguirre,” add to the colorful complexity of In Amazonia. And, yes, more koto, please! But there is so much more. Hammill’s vocals on “Under the Current” touch an electric-razor’s edge (with the falsetto still intact!) while Isildurs Bane band members color the melody with deep botanical beauty. “Aguirre” is (almost) acoustic, with Mats Johansson’s keyboards echoing Tony Banks’ Lamb brilliance.
Now, as they once said on British trains, “All change!” And “The Day Is Done” is just that. It’s the big dramatic keyboard-and-voice dart-to-the-soul song. It’s not quite “House with No Door” or “The Lie (Bernini’s Saint Theresa),” but it’s in a really close orbit and has intensity and introspection to burn.
The final tune is the instrumental “This Bird Has Flown.” It gives Isildurs Bane a chance to grumble and soar musically with animal noises and a driving beat. As the curtain closes, we are reminded that, indeed, music can still investigate new dimensions. And that’s a nice ending, as said, to an album of classic and still vital progressive-rock music.
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