Ice Blue, Silver Sky is profound, powerful, and filled with minute intensity. It’s a great modern progressive rock record that creates its own art-rock turbulence as it follows the musical wake of what drummer extraordinaire Bill Bruford dubbed, “the Good Ship Crimson.”
And, lest we forget, David Cross played a vital violin (and more) on the band’s brilliant Larks’ Tongues in Aspic and Starless and Bible Black albums. As for Ice Blue, Silver Sky, my friend Kilda Defnut simply says, “This music storms any citadels that are left to be stormed.”
The first song rocks with violin aggression, and there are odd voices that permeate the tune to create an eerie vibe. Then “Nurse Insane” suddenly erupts into a ’70s-era volcanic hard-rocking vinyl groove. The Vertigo label band Warhorse (sans violin!) comes to mind. Vocalist and guitarist Jonathan Casey rips through a cosmic asteroid belt melody, while the engine room of Mick Paul (bass) and Jack Summerfield (drums) pound with see-saw thunder. Of course, David Cross slices through the mayhem with a gut-strung razor touch.
The next song, “Calamity,” begins with an angry growl and a gentle flute introduction that morphs into an acoustic-voiced ballad with a swirling melody and strident guitar chords that evolve into a Crimson-like mantra with another violin buss-saw cut. Next comes an electric guitar matrix run with a tightrope whirling and perhaps wonderfully insane (without the nurse to blame this time!) violin solo. This is tense, beautiful stuff.
“Nowhere” is yet another warped tune with big backing vocals and a (sort of) funky pulse. Of course, David Cross’s violin surrounds the song and then guest saxophonist David Jackson (of Van der Graaf Generator fame) adds his thought to the song’s space-imbibed orbit. There’s also a catchy coda that sings with a nice confession with the acoustic (and very human) plea of “Without you I am going nowhere.”
“Exiles” was the subdued and poignant jewel in King Crimson’s Larks’ Tongues in Aspic album. Cross gives the song a very different look on Ice Blue, Silver Sky. The drama and intensity are tightened with a solo violin saga meshed with Sheila Maloney’s pulsing keyboards, and then dark space is added with Mick Paul’s burbling bass.
The melody dissolves into slow motion atomic dissection, only to recover that hornets’ nest violin vibration. Somehow, amid the wah-wah guitar euphoria, vocalist Jonathan Casey grabs the melodic reins, achieves re-entry, and lands the tune amid a fiery electric guitar-fueled descent through a prog stratosphere after 14 minutes of rock euphoria.
The pace quickens. “Karma Gain,” once again, is graced with backing voices, a catchy chorus, and even more mysteriously mumbled conversations. Of course, David Cross’s violin crisscrosses the tune, as various voices slide about in a nicely weird way and David Jackson adds a brief sax coda. Then ‘Over Your Shoulder” gets sinister, and perhaps touches the art rock of (the once great) Genesis during their Trick of the Tail “Robbery, Assault and Battery” period, with a cool Middle Eastern-vibed violin solo.
Everything becomes “Starless” (as it should) for yet another 14 minutes of resurrected Larks euphoria. There’s more spooky muffled conversation on this update. That’s followed with a huge drum thump and a bit of cacophony, as David Cross’s violin and Jonathan Casey’s vocals caress the warm theme of the original “Good Ship Crimson” song. Get ready for a sublime ride.
Sure, the guitar paces the immensity of the universe as the bass counts falling stars. There are more murmured conversations. Canterbury’s Caravan called these voices “All Sorts of Unmentionable Things.” Sure, again. And the song, in true Crimso tradition, continues to shoot rocket exhaust over the Sea of Tranquility. Finally, Cross lets fly his belated conflagrated contribution to the original Red variation of this classic prog track. Thankfully, the nerve-tingling melody returns for a moment’s reflection after everything (as it still should) has once again become “Starless.”
Ice Blue, Silver Sky is an album of turbulence and minute intensity. It sings with the ever-ascending lark’s sound, with that “melodious jumble of clear notes and trills interspersed with harsh buzzes and churrs,” that simply refuses to be ambered in any sort of prog-rock aspic.
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