Two top Dutch musicians have joined forces in the new musical project Flight Recorder and made an extraordinarily surprising debut album with Sirens. We are talking about Robin van Vliet, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, known from a.o. Slagerij van Kampen and Anouk, and singer/guitarist Marcel Singor, recognized solo artist and he mainly came to my knowledge because of his contributions to the latest version of well-known Dutch prog heroes Kayak. Not the least indeed and you can hear that because both are driven and versatile musicians who both take care of the vocals. Van Vliet's voice is a bit more general and never intrusive while Singor's voice is a bit pinched, a tad nasal. The harmony vocals are more than fine and come to the fore regularly. There are several guest drummers active and that also ensures diversity in terms of sound. It is quite daring to start a debut album with a suite of more than fifteen minutes, Future Now, but that immediately makes the ambitions of the duo clear. It doesn't get boring for a minute, Singor's guitar is prominently present and you can hear that he is of great class right away. All this fits against the cinematographic background of nice floating keys, because van Vliet excels in that, so don't expect too many whirling keyboard solos like Rick Wakeman or the late Keith Emerson. It's more atmosphere than rock. We encounter the same atmosphere in the almost five-minutes long I still Do That, sung by Singor and he displays his wonderful guitar runs again. Still, this song lacks a bit of direction and spice, but then again, it is a ballad with very personal lyrics from Singor. It is not easy to keep the attention after such an opener. Grazing Light is sung by van Vliet and contains a clearer rhythm and even a short keyboard solo. I hear similarities with the music of John Holden, fairly pastoral, not heavy at all, let alone rocking. We hear the latter a bit more in Into A Monster where Singor shows his signature guitar sounds and takes care of the vocals. He is one of those guitarists you immediately pick out in terms of style and sound with more than just a pinch of Jeff Beck. What is striking is that almost all vocals drown in reverb and that starts to bother me a bit as I go along. Apparently they don't dare to venture into a second longer track because Everything Changes When You Turn It On also just passes the five minute mark. Still, this track is very bittersweet and even resembles the boy bands from the 80s and 90s, if it weren't for the fact that the guitar still makes a difference. Since Passing Through initially breathes the same atmosphere, there threatens to be a bit of boredom but that is overcome by a beautiful guitar solo but even more, a wonderful keyboard solo, which is very nice. That could (should) have been done more often. Closing track Sirens Of Love also starts quite smoothly with a singing van Vliet who seems to have used a lot of autotune but because this track is approaching the seven minutes mark there is still enough time to add some variation. Yet it is clear again how well they play, the guitar solo is beautiful with David Gilmour-like outbursts and dexterous playing. A worthy finale to a great album and next to the opening track my favourite of the album. If I'm honest, my expectation after reading the supplied info was different from what I eventually heard. Sirens is a very consistent album with a clear line and equally clear choices. There is variation but it is certainly not an album that ventures in all directions in terms of style. The already mentioned name John Holden keeps coming to mind, the pastoral and cinematographic accent, in actually all tracks, is more than clearly perceptible. A very nice album, which could have used a little more spice now and then, but that shouldn't spoil the fun. I might have chosen the order of the songs a bit differently because the attention in the middle of the album slackens a bit, but that doesn't take away from the fact that this is a very good debut that definitely deserves a sequel. *** Erik Fraanje (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
