1. After the Echoes - 8:432. Limoncello - 7:57
3. Victoria's Summer Home - 2:54
4. The Imperial Hotel - 28:10
5. Into the Lake - 8:43
All I can say is, wow. A gathering of musicians across several continents in several studios came together and created a progressive rock masterpiece. The core of the Samurai of Prog are Marco Bernard (bass), Kimmo Porsti (drums), and Steve Unruh (vocals, flute, violin, acoustic guitar). The Samurai solicited four different keyboardists for original compositions, which they arranged, interpreted, performed, and recorded, with the help of different guest guitarists for each song, plus a few others. From this large cast of musicians and composers, it is remarkable that the album is coherent at all, much less the focused, well-paced, exciting, wildly creative success that it is.
With a glorious sunburst of a chorus as its anchor, keyboardist Octavio Stampalia's "After the Echoes" marries several different moods and movements. Up-tempo knotty verses, contrapuntal piano and bass, beautifully fragile vocals in the bridge, and heroic instrumental solos combine to stunning effect in this opener. From such bright beginnings, the playful Baroque waltz of Robert Webb's "Limoncello" continues the goodness: a melodic bass line dances with muscular synth, sprightly violin/flute, and a delicious over-the-top guitar performance from Yoshihisa Shimizu. More multi-part vocals import a wistful, Decameron-related musing.
David Myers's solo piano performance of "Victoria's Summer Home" serves as a lush, Romantic introduction to the main event: Robert Webb's "The Imperial Hotel", a dramatic, richly textured, perfectly paced musical ghost story. Shared lead vocals between Steve and Robert tell the tale of a rich young upstart trying to buy an abandoned hotel, whose aged owner Emma will only entertain her potential buyer as a hotel guest. James plays along in hopes of making a deal, but Emma's hopes are darker and more mysterious... The story communicates well on first listen but yields new enjoyment with repeated hearings, and the music perfectly complements the action. The Samurai shine on their instruments, Webb provides inspired keyboard/synth/organ, and the stately guitar work of Glass Hammer's Kamran Alan Shikoh reaches dizzying heights in this multifaceted epic. The 28 minutes flies by and leaves you very satisfied, yet still wanting more. Ah, the yearning...
Closing the album is Linus Kase's "Into the Lake", an intricate, murky rumination on the unrecoverable past. The intense interplay of synth, violin, bass, and drums, along with the contrapuntal two-part vocals during the 19/8-time verse, all combine to create a sense of drama and disintegration that makes the piece gripping. The album as a whole moves from light to dark, freedom to capture, possibility to certainty, with the story of "The Imperial Hotel" acting as the heart and hinge, and the other songs exploring the same emotional arc through progressive adventures. Not to be missed.
Arbitrary rating: 5 out of 5 musical ghost stories
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