For those who have not yet heard of Finally George, behind this name is the German Georg Hahn and we can safely say that he is the driving force behind this project. He plays many instruments and is responsible for all of the compositions and lyrics. Yet there are several other musicians involved, so we can say this is close to a band effort. For example, Todd Sucherman (Styx) is responsible for the drums and there are several guitarists who deliver solos of which some are really nice. Hahn is assisted by Detlef Bösche on Hammond organ and Matthias Pogoda on piano, in the title track. Painter is Finally George's third album and took quite a while to make, at least that's what Hahn says. It is quite a melancholy album with lyrics that certainly do not contain much cheerfulness, but that does fit the current time with all its false information, geopolitical tensions and wars. What does that do to us? This album mainly contains fairly quiet melodic music that sometimes rubs against the edge of neo prog. In the info the term progressive pop comes up and I agree with that because there is not too much rock. Every now and then, however, the tempo picks up and we are treated to a more heavy feel for a while, like towards the end of the song Why? which also contains a nice guitar solo by Johnny Beck (Sylvan). In general, the music is good, with a very pleasant atmosphere and the vocals are also quite good without too much accent. This atmosphere is the poster child and as a reference you could think of Blackfield. The length of most tracks is quite limited but the title and opening track is one of the exceptions with almost eight minutes, and is immediately my favourite track on the album, partly due to the fine guitar solo (Erlend Krauser) and the beautiful melody. The already mentioned vocals are certainly pleasant but also not very spectacular. Solid I would say and that actually applies to the entire album. Tracks like What Kind Of Place? or On My Way To You sound quite nice but not too much happens. Here too, the atmosphere is leading. And so there are several tracks that actually glide by a bit silently and before you know it you get to the penultimate track and fortunately there is more going on here, the longer Child Of The Universe contains some solid guitar chords that set the tone and a number of keyboard solos provide variation before a beautiful orchestral piece introduces the finale. These orchestral arrangements are more often used and are mostly very beautiful. The short guitar solo is a bit dull but that shouldn't spoil the fun, this is definitely livelier and more bubbly. The closer Wolves lasts only two minutes and is more of a personal final statement against a background of cautious touches of keys. You can clearly hear that a lot of attention has been paid to the creation of Painter and that has resulted in a very nice album with some real highlights. Where a little more daring is shown and a little more risk is taken, it results in the better tracks. If Georg could maintain that level for an entire album much more would certainly be possible because the potential is definitely there. ***+ Erik Fraanje (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
