Head With Wings’ new EP Comfort in Illusion is a 17-minute plus glimpse into a very modern prog world that understands the nuanced beauty of all the classic stuff. Sure, there is plenty of prog pomp and drama. But the real joy is in the acoustic guitar bits, the keyboard melodies, and the beauty of a continuous thought — a thought that manifests itself through clever arrangements that capture both the sun and the moon (aka light and dark!) in their melodic progressive rock orbits.
Now, perhaps, I’m wrong, but the Connecticut band’s name, Head With Wings, references Peter Gabriel’s “bat wings” during “Watcher of the Skies.” And this music does evoke the complex beauty of Genesis, circa Nursery Cryme and in particular, “The Fountain of Salmacis.”
The first song, “Of Uncertainty,” begins with percussion, acoustic guitar and Joshua Corum’s vocals that do touch the ethereal drama of Gabriel’s urgent early underground voice. Then the band kicks this prog rock into very modern times with an electric bit, until the tune dissolves into a nice rather playful acoustic moment. Until (again!) of course, the full band returns with full-throttled passion with intensity to burn. Ah, the quiet acoustic melody, with guitar, voice, and percussion is reprised to fulfill the seven-minute journey.
Look, not to brag (or reveal my age!), but I bought The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway on the day of its American release. I purchased England’s Garden Shed album in a Minneapolis import store during the dying days of progressive rock. So, I love this stuff. And, Head With Wings captures the original tapestry of those times, with, thankfully, very vital electricity.
Comfort in Illusion is a welcome addition to the stable of current favorite prog bands. It doesn’t have the darkness of Riverside or the Pineapple Thief, and it’s much more concise than, say, Transatlantic and the Flower Kings. Thankfully, it has none of the neo-prog moves that were popular for a while.
Let’s just say that Head With Wings play a very wonderful game of often intricate and inventive progressive rock croquet – sans, of course, Henry Hamilton-Smythe’s “gracefully removed” head.
The second song, “Contemplating the Loop,” begins with a lovely acoustic guitar that gazes at the heavens (and recalls Steve Hackett’s soft touch!) and then the band enters with an almost folky driven propulsion with the sudden addition of an electric energy, that still, with the ever-lovely acoustic guitar, weaves a tense web that continues to swell with drama. The tune stands on the very edge of some melodic memory, a memory that evokes the days when we rock ‘n’ roll lovers played records in search of some truth – and on every weekend (alone, of course, because we prog nerds seldom had girlfriends!) we all loved a gamble with any current purchase, which sported, hopefully, really cool cover art.
The final song, “In a House Without Clocks,” continues the template: A mumble of voices introduces the tune, then there’s a bit of acoustic guitar, and the song suddenly explodes with twin guitars (courtesy of Brandon Cousino and Mike Short!) and the constant percussion and bass (by Andrew Testa and Steve Hill, respectively). There’s a momentary reprieve with that Hackett-blessed soft guitar sound. But, of course, the cleverly arranged tune explodes again. Then there’s yet another short acoustic guitar break which pauses with dulcet tension, only heightening the big return–not of the Giant Hogweed, mind you, but rather the urgent prog-rock race into the groves of this fiery-voiced finale.
Comfort in Illusion is a dramatic 17 minutes filled with an enormity of nuances which juxtapose the melodic “hurly-burly” of Head With Wings firing on all its prog rock cleverly arranged cylinders.
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