Customer Reviews

The Inconsolable Secret

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I like Glass Hammer a lot. I own all of their studio albums and they see frequent rotation in my weekly/monthly play list. THE INCONSOLIBLE SECRET is an epic, two disc behemoth of a work that continues their long standing tradition of making theme driven albums.

Again inspired by grand tales of mythology and Authurian legend, this time co-founders Steve Babb and Fred Schendel have weaved a story of knights and a Lady, enchanted kingdoms, love and war. If not directly taken from Alfred Lord Tennison's THE LADY OF SHALLOT, it is certainly inspired by the epic poem. So, is this a rock opera, a concept album, a soundtrack? All of the above, sort of.

The music is heavily keyboard driven much in the style of Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman. It is further enhanced with tasty guitar licks, solid bass lines, beautiful choral arrangements, and even some great orchestral passages. The lead male vocals are pleasant but not distinctive - lacking the strength and the lilting quality a Jon Anderson. The lead female vocals are handled admirably by Susie Bogdanowicz, who has appeared on numerous GH albums in the past.

For me, some of the real musical highlights of the album come near the end of the second disc; THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY is a beautiful piece with lush orchestration and touching keyboard passages. THE LADY WAITS is a dark and lushly orchestrated passage evocative of Aram Khatchaturian's Gayane adagio. The final song, HAVING CAUGHT A GLIMPSE deftly mixes orchestral power with prog-rock dynamics.

In what may seem like a major coup for the band, the album cover was illustrated by the godfather of all prog-rock album covers, the incomparable Roger Dean. Best known for his classic covers for YES and countless other bands back in the 70's, here he has created a glacial landscape and added his distinctive flair to what will surely become "the" Glass Hammer logo.

And herein lies the problem I have with this album. While the CD looks great, perhaps it was a mistake for GH to associate themselves so closely to such an iconic image. I'm afraid that people in a quest for the next YES will be disappointed. After 8 or 9 studio albums, the band has still to separate themselves from inevitable comparisons to those bands that have come before. I think the band should concentrate on more separation and creating their own distinct voice. That being said, I think fans of Glass Hammer will be delighted with this double CD package.

Glass Hammer's latest offering, The Inconsolable Secret, is a 2-CD Progressive Rock album that eclipses their previous concept album masterpiece Lex Rex in nearly every aspect.

Musically, the sound of both Lex Rex and Shadowlands are represented and built upon exponentially, and the addition of Matt Mendians (Live at Nearfest and Lex Live) as GH's studio drummer will simply shut up the long time grumblings of fans and reviewers alike. The band experiments with styles never heard before on pervious albums, and the wide range of sound benefits the overall feel of both discs and highlights Babb and Schendel's growing maturity in songwriting that comes with their eighth major release. The production work is crisp and pristine, with a balanced sound. No instrument is ever too loud for need of overpowering the others, and having heard the album on a variety of systems, it seems to play well without much tweaking.

Lyrically the album centers around a 60+ page epic poem by Steve Babb entitled "The Lay of Lirazel" which in its own right is an incredible work, and is included with other goodies on the digipack-enhanced first CD.

Disc One, entitled "The Knight" contains two songs that are very much done in the fantastic "stripped down" sound of lush vocal harmonies, organ, mellotron, synth, bass, and guitar that made Glass Hammer famous. It opens with `A Maker of Crowns' a powerful song that has a piano, organ, and a synth riff running throughout that harkens back to Camel's work. The 25+ minute epic `The Knight of The North' has many sections and moods that work together as a whole- you never realize that you listened to near a half-hour of one song. At 7:50 into this track, there is a blaze of inspired synth and Hammond work, but there are simply too many highlights to mention; the piece closes strongly with warm choir and orchestra.

Disc Two, or "The Lady," is a cohesive set of songs that tell a story just as Lex Rex had, book ended by two tracks over 10 minutes in length. The beautiful female vocals get to take center stage multiple times, showing the incredible talents of both old and new girls. `Lirazel' remains a favorite of mine; although I wish it was longer! Many of the instrumental and symphonic pieces in the middle of CD two evoke a very "movie score" feel to them- you are taken along for the ride, like something out of The Lord of The Rings. `Mog Ruith' is an explosion of drums and keyboards fit for a battle scene. The soft ballad `Through a Glass Darkly' evokes emotions that run deep, and fits nicely within the set. `Having Caught a Glimpse' has soaring vocals and melody, and culminates in an incredible way, bringing themes and cues from other songs on the album to bring disc two to a close, which sent shivers through my whole body.

All this incredible orchestration, especially at the end of `Having Caught a Glimpse' almost worries the keyboard fan in me slightly. Fans need to make sure GH never forgets the sound that Lex Rex and Chronometree made famous.

That small reservation aside, which in no way detracts from this work as a whole, this is a must buy for any fan of Yes, Kansas, Echolyn, or keyboard-driven symphonic prog as a whole. Special mention must be made of the wonderful packaging and cover art with new logo created by famed artist Roger Dean.

One wonders how they might top this album, for Glass Hammer once again has taken a myriad of musical influences and made it completely their own: 5/5.

This is a very good CD.. and so far GH has been able to improve on each release.. which would seem very hard to do since their last two have been very good.. and each one of those really topped the other one in quality...

I suspect that the folks in GH are just getting better at what they do, in conjunction with their music chops mixing with better engineering ideas and savvy. When both engineering savvy and music chops both grow at the same rate.. the product can be outstanding, and this product is very outstanding.

A lot of folks are noting that GH is going to for the YES audience.. and to some extent this is true.. the keyboard playing is quite good.. wakeman like in many ways... and there is enough guitar playing in this to float a comparison to YES.. but most of all, the style of Symphonic Progressive Music is what they most likely have the kindred soul of YES... I would say that they do have nods here and there to YES, but the style is quite different in the sense that they really don't sound like YES as much as they sound totally fresh and new... Certainly this band is more inspired than the releases of YES the past couple of outings (lets hope YES gets in the studio with Rick and cuts a great one!).. but it is unfair to YES and GH to say that GH is just imitating YES.... that is like saying that The Rolling Stones were imitating Chuck Berry.. certainly CB had an influence on the RS, but.. you get what I am saying.

The songs in this recording are quite outstanding, and the pipe organ/keyboards are really great. You have to like Keyboards to like this cd... it is a keyboard masterpiece... and sprinkled with awesome guitar... but keys are the mainstay of GH, and if anyone has any GH's previous work, you would understand it as a conintuation of this... GH has always been a keyboard extravaganza.

The vocals are very good, and over all this is a Prog treat.

Have fun

If it's symphonic prog you are after, The Inconsolable Secret is a positively phenomenal album, a top contender for Best Prog Album of the Year (2005), in my opinion. It is, quite simply, the most beautifully immersive, most creative, phenomenal work of artistic brilliance that I've ever experienced. It also exhibits new Roger Dean artwork, a bluish formation of shaped boulders amidst a starry-night landscape.

Here's what comes with the CD: First off, it's a 2-disc set. Disc 1, titled "The Knight", has two songs on it, totalling about 39 minutes. The second disc, titled "The Lady", is a collection of songs that all run together. Disc 1 is also an Enhanced CD, which contains a few different goodies: a very-high-resolution jpeg image of Roger Dean's painting on the cover, a .pdf document containing all the lyrics in a four-color layout using a fancy Roger-Dean-ish font for all the titles and a very long .pdf document that contains Steve Babb's epic-length poem, "The Lay Of Lirazel", which is actually misspelled in the filename as "Lizarel". There's always some last-minute edits that escape the naked eye.

The other thing one should know is that this item comes as a DIGIPAK. That's when the outer cover and folds are made of cardboard and the artwork is printed directly onto it. This wasn't going to stop me from buying it, but I just thought you should know, just in case you hate digipaks.

I hope this review was informative for you in your decision to buy/not buy.

It was downloading material from, primarily, this site, that got me into the band in the first place. And I thought Shadowlands, Perelandra, Chronomotree/Chronomatree (you'll get the joke with LANF) and Live at Nearfest (live renditions of classic tracks from these three albums) were good. This has to be their strongest album to date, and that's saying something. Split across 2 discs, 'the Knights' comprising 2 tracks and 'The Lady'a number of shorter pieces (including the essential 'having caught a glimpse' this is soaring, epic music, with wonderful harmonies, steel guitar, pipe organ - truly symphonic prog and the live gig in Nashville in November should be something truly special. 'Live at Nearfest' gave us a glimpse of where this band were and where they could could go. TIS shows us where they are now, and points us in a wonderful,lyrical and evocative direction. Essential listening for all fans of Yes, Glass Hammer nevertheless are a truly original band of incredibly talented musicians making fabulous 21st century music.
An Englishman, I shall be at Nashville front and centre. Join me.

Glass Hammer's "The Inconsolable Secret" is an amazing work. I finally picked this up a couple of weeks ago and am very excited about this music.
The pieces are filled with beautiful melodies around wonderful arrangements. The orchestration in each song is perfect. The production superb. The Roger Dean artwork is just an added bonus that adds to your overall experience. Over 90 minutes of music on 2 CD's and I never tire of it. With that much music there is bound to be something you might skip over. Not so with this album. It is all excellent.

To those not familiar with this band: If you enjoy the likes of YES, ELP, Kansas, and a touch or two of old school Genesis, then I highly recommend Glass Hammer. Check out "Chronometree", "Lex Rex", and "Live at NEARFest" as well. You'll be in for a treat!

First, I'm aware I will get (Glass) Hammered for this review. If I'm not smashed by GH lurkers on Amazon, I'll get hammered by fans of the double-album epics, the holy grail of prog that leads believers astray like a false prophet.

On the plus side, Glass Hammer - at its best - sounds straight up like Yes' "Going for the One" - and that's a very good thing. Lots of big organs, tasty pedal steel guitar, thick bass, etc. The main difference between mid-70s Yes and GH is the singer is more like Trevor Rabin, and the lyrics - to an excess - focus on medieval tales of knights and dragons, etc. However, these are small flaws for keeping 70s-style prog alive and well in the 21st century.

The main problem with this release is the double CD format. Like Yes (Topographic Oceans), Genesis (Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), and ELP (Works), the double album never brings out the best in a prog band. Sadly, many prog fans fall for this trick and think these albums are the artists' best works. I would vote, instead, for "Close to the Edge," "Selling England by the Pound," and "Brain Salad Surgery," respectively. And lest we forget, band members themselves often regret doubles - Topo caused Rick Wakeman to quit Yes, frustrated Chris Squire, etc.

Like their 70s gurus, one can only assume GH sat down and decided "let's make a double," as opposed to "let's make the best music we can." He who does not learn from the past is condemned to repeat it, and filler abounds on "The Inconsolable Secret."

Happily, most of the filler is on disc one, two "epics" of inconsolable and unending length. I cannot remember a melody - and barely a flashy chop - and I don't know if I can sit through it again.

However, disc 2 is a big improvement, and likely to please any GH or most Yes fans. But if you're new to GH, I would start with Lex Rex - truly amazing. I also recommend this album if - like Topo, Lamb and Works - you're willing to expect one album's worth of good material spread out over two discs.

If you're reading this then the chances are you're already receptive to the beast that is Prog Rock and you may even have heard some of Glass Hammer's previous outings. If that's the case and you liked Glass Hammer before, you're certainly not going to be disappointed with this album! Indeed, for me, it's a new chapter in GH's development as a band.

Out of all GH's works, The Inconsolable Secret took the longest time for me to digest, not because it's bad but because it's so dense. There's so much happening and, in conjunction with the epic poem included on the first disc, so many strands to take in both musically and lyrically, that you really need to concentrate and pay attention! Not, of course, that the album isn't chock full of Glass Hammer trademarks - lush orchestration, layered vocals, sterling work on guitar, bass and keys - but the addition of a string trio and choir, especially on the second disc (The Lady), propels this album into a different league from other GH works and indeed other recent progressive releases. Modern progressive bands have always had to weather accusations of plagiarism of earlier groups like the Big Four (Yes, Genesis, ELP, King Crimson) and there's no denying that memories of Yes & ELP are evoked on The Inconsolable Secret. But with The Lady, Glass Hammer have pointed us towards the common roots of all progressive rock. Their work on disc 2 evokes not just 70's giants but also late 19th/early 20th century classical pieces, choral works, high church music and even some rustic folk traditions. In effect, they've chosen the past 400 years of music as their starting palette and then invented some new colours of their own. That, to me, is a good definition of progression!

Add all this to some excellently crafted lyrics (this is more than a fantasy knights and dragons tale!) and you have a work that will bear many repeated listenings and will grow with age. Is it a classic? Posterity will judge that but I can tell you that if you regard yourself as an afficionado of symphonic progressive rock then you will be missing a trick if you don't add this album to your collection.

I'm just waiting to see how they can top this!! Perhaps a full orchestra, hmmm...

This is a fantastic album, a true masterpiece. Glass Hammer ably combines elements reminiscent of all of the prog heavies (Yes, ELP, Kansas, etc.), yet GH's take on all of these is fresh, and in most cases BETTER than what the original groups put out. It has a great storyline, positive, meaningful lyrics, and is artfully executed. Plus, with the orchestration of this album, GH goes beyond the "retro" feel and charts out some new musical territory.

This CD is uncompromizingly progressive to boot. Very well done, with all the anachronisms you'd expect from a prog album, yet fresh and original nonetheless. These guys are just out to make great music, they have no worry in the world about sounding commercial, and that kind of attitude deserves applause. Having said that, the music itself is as rich and complex as anything Yes and Genesis has ever done, with production that just shines. Beautiful melodies and chord progressions abound, mind-boggling solos and time-defying meters elevate this work to progressive Olympus.