Two years after their excellent second album Friends (2023, see review), Gayle Ellet & The Electromags "return" with their new album called The Painted River Of Light, and this instrumental prog rock album features four epic tracks packed with Mellotron and Minimoog. The opening track The Illuminating Sands Of Time is rather cinematic with lots of beautiful sounds, Mellotron galore, flute passages, but luckily also some swirling guitar passages, choppy riffs, and Hammond organ melodies. Follow up Deep Waters Glow Brightly also sounds like a soundtrack from a fantasy or science fiction movie as the Mellotron and Moog are again very dominant. Next up Frequency Modulation. The longest song of the album starts with a bit if country music, but finally this piece has definitely more guitar in it than the previous two songs and also Ellet throws in some sitar tones here. Finally, the listener is treated to the best song, as The Rhodes To Discovery features the best and most cool guitar passages and solos of the entire album. However, this third release is quite different from Gayle Ellet's previous albums as the guitar plays a rather inferior role here and I would rather hear Ellet playing his guitar more! I called his previous album a wonderful album for lovers of good old guitar stuff, but The Painted River Of Light is a rather "other" album indeed, and, sad but true, not really my cup of tea indeed, as it is way too dreamy and cinematic, without going anywhere actually. According to Ellet, this album is meant to take listeners on an imaginary boat ride through a fantastical canyon that follows an otherworldly river of light; they feel like they are high on mushrooms, and it is meant to sound both familiar and exotic. After a couple of spins I cannot really relate to Ellet's comment and to tell you the truth I even fell asleep during the second listening "session", so for me The Painted River Of Light is not an album that will end up high in my top ten of 2025, I think I will put on Friends again..... **+ Martien Koolen (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
