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Think of this as a journey - Close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to start off, at first going through scenery you have not seen before yet which is somehow familiar, as the travelogue continues through more obvious points of reference, until, at the very end, the person or thing or place that you would have crossed deserts, rode oceans and flown skies for, finally appears. That is this album…
Opening with a minute of gorgeous piano, ‘Singularity’ melts into a melange of almost Tony Banks-esque symphonic keyboards as the appearance of John Hackett on flute provides a wonderfully floating melody line above. Then the music becomes ever more symphonic and Enid like, and the icing on the cake appears in the form of a breathtakingly restrained and sustained electric lead guitar figure, courtesy of none other than Steve Hackett, as flute, guitar and massed keyboards electronics provide a near eight-minute thing of wonder - and this is merely the beginning of the journey.
After a minute of gorgeous atmospheric washes of tonal colour from Magnus’s keyboards and Geoff Whitehorn’s weeping electric guitar the pace and the tempo of the music increases slightly for the near nine-minute ‘Dancing On The Waters’. Clare Brigstocke’s heavenly wordless female vocal precedes the arrival of rhythms (both electronic and percussive) that rise from below in chunky fashion, and the whole thing has a distinctly vintage Mike Oldfield feel to it at first. A bit over five minutes in, and the composition becomes stronger, with organ melody lines and Moog-like soloing that join the Mellotron choirs and soaring strings above the rolling rhythmic base, giving a decidedly symphonic prog feel to the proceedings. As the track draws to a close the final minute takes on a more sombre feel that could so easily be the closing moments of an emotional scene in some film, as distant angelic choral effects and strings give the track an almost ‘Hairless Heart’ like feel, with strings instead of guitar at the very end – A truly exquisite piece of music.
It’s on the nine-minute ‘Marduk’ where the transition from beauty to strength finally takes place completely, as a Supertramp-like piano-led melody begins over suitably solid, typically prog-rock rhythms, and immediately the song begins with Tony Patterson (from Regenesis) doing a sterling job on vocals, more a sort of Peter Gabriel era Genesis/Mike & Mechanics way of doing things than anything, but with distinctly Alan Parsons-like tendencies in the vocal harmonies and the electric piano arrangement with added Mellotron strings. At just over three minutes in, a scorching guitar solo from Geoff Whitehorn soars out of nowhere, and does battle with an equally class Mini-Moog-type solo from Magnus, as the rhythms stumble in pure prog fashion. Mellotron choirs are heard in the distance, then brief Mellotron strings appears, and then the vocal goes slightly upper register and descriptive lyric transports into late Gabriel-era ‘Lamb’ Genesis territory – superb! More classic organ, synth and guitar work emerges over the solid rhythms until it subsides and a female vocal emerges courtesy of Debi Doss to offer a rich contrast to what has gone before, with electric guitar swirling away out the back and with the re-appearance of the male vocal the whole thing now rises up to give the feel of that grandiose type finale that you love to hear from many a prog album gone by, only here probably more epic and yet emotive than most. The final minute settles down to a beautiful piano melody with string-synth backdrop and another lovely female vocal part from Clare Brigstocke.
It’s a testament to the overall arrangement of this album that something like this can be followed by (and made to work perfectly) a track like ‘Sophia's Song’ - Just under six minutes of what is essentially an Enya-meets-Sally Oldfield style Celtic-flavoured ballad, as the beautiful vocal of Siobhan McCarthy just rises majestically over a backdrop of Magnus’s string-synths, acoustic guitar keyboard work and Ninian Boyle’s violin to create a most gorgeous song that barely leaves a dry eye in the house - So warm and yet so strong!
Then there is ‘Double Helix’ a two-minute instrumental featuring Magnus’s acoustic guitar sounds, flute and violin – It’s very tasty for sure, but, while it is a thing of beauty, it’s almost has the same effect of a track like Hackett’s ‘Horizons’ (which introduced the epic ‘Supper’s Ready’ on the Genesis album ‘Foxtrot’) in that it’s a precursor of what’s to come – and that is simply breathtaking!
Even though it’s really three individual tracks, it plays almost as one long near sixteen-minute piece, and that is the final part of the album that starts with a song, moves through some of the finest instrumental symphonic guitar/synth based prog you’ll ever hear, and then into another fantastic muscular instrumental slice of atmospheric and driving prog-rock that ends with a cast of choirs, choral keyboards, guitars, synths, bass and drums as the triad comes to a stunning conclusion. In more detail, this means that you start with ’Brother Sun Sister Moon’, a solid prog-rock song with a superb melodic synth intro, a catchy hook and an infectious chorus. It features the excellent vocals of ex-Hackett band (era ’78-’80) team-mate Pete Hicks, and the song is suitably purposeful and multi-layered, coming with a backing that rises in most emotive fashion as keyboards, drums and high-flying electric slide guitar from Melvyn Hiscock create a song that is so enjoyable and one that really gets into your head very quickly. Ending with a wonderful slice of Mellotron choral effects, it leads directly into: ‘Seven Hands of Time’ with an awesome instrumental passage of string-synth led symphonics, and it is a veritable showcase for some of the most gorgeous weeping electric lead guitar work from Steve Hackett that you’ll have heard in ages. As the synth bass booms in, the drums start a rolling rhythm, then the keyboards rise up and a steaming electric guitar solo spreads itself overhead far and wide – This is a classic Hackett-style track and just a fantastic five-minute instrumental passage that could so easily have fitted into a past Hackett album like ‘Spectral Mornings’ or ‘Voyage Of The Acolyte’, and it will have all prog fans utterly mesmerized!
Again, this piece ends with a more eerie, brooding feel, as deep synth textures and choral sounds emerge from deep down in the mix, then after a brief pause, it moves into ‘The Power of Reason’ where you hear this wondrously atmospheric passage that is just heavenly – almost literally – as Clare Brigstocke’s soprano voice rises above a fantastic male choral passage from the Bears' Chorus. Synth strings appear all around the mix and the feel becomes positively spiritual as John Hackett’s flute arrives with added organ from Magnus, then Steve Hackett’s electric guitar sails in again to light up the skies, and the whole piece just takes off. After a while it all falls back to just piano, string-synths and flute, again it’s very Banks/Parsons-esque, then, with a single symphonic sweep, the track then rises up again as Hackett’s electric guitar blazes supreme over a backdrop of choirs and strings, and the piece builds to an awe-inspiring climax that will leave you jaw-dropped in amazement – and that’s it.
As an example of classic symphonic prog, ‘Hexameron’ is in a class of its own. If you were one of the many who loved Nick Magnus’s last album ‘Inhaling Green’, then you’re going to love this album too, and if you prefer his "proggier" tracks, then that is even more reason to believe you will like ‘Hexameron’ even more.
(Andy Garibaldi, CDS)