Glass Hammer - Perilous

(CD 2012, 60:37, Arion/Sound Recources SR3027)

The tracks:
  1- The Sunset Gate(7:37)
  2- Beyond They Dwell(4:00)
  3- The Restless Ones(3:36)
  4- They Cast Their Spell(3:21)
  5- We Slept, We Dreamed(7:41)
  6- The Years Were Sped(2:57)
  7- Our Foe Revealed(6:27)
  8- Toward Home We Fled(6:47)
  9- As The Sun Dipped Down(1:32)
10- The Wolf Gave Chase(1:59)
11- We Fell At Last(1:56)
12- In That Lonely Place(6:10)
13- Where Sorrows Died And Came No More(6:34)

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In my opinion If (2010) and Cor Cordium (2011) were two superb albums recorded by Glass Hammer, so I was really looking forward to their new CD. However, after listening to Perilous over and over again it's sad to say that I'm slightly disappointed. I'll give you three reasons why Perilous doesn't meet the high musical level of its predecessors. First of all I would skip the utterly corny piece In That Lonely Place, as it is so sweet and boring that I thought I was listening to a new musical song by Andrew Lloyd Webber! Secondly I miss the musical power on this album, and last but not least I would say that the four instrumental pieces The Years Were Sped, As The Sun Dipped Down, The Wolf Gave Chase and In That Lonely Place are all too short, rather mediocre and mostly filled with acoustic guitar passages.

Luckily there are also a number of great songs on Perilous, namely The Sunset Gate, They Cast Their Spell, Toward Home We Fled and Beyond The Dwell, which really have the same high musical level as the songs on If and Cor Cordium. Especially the melodic guitar solos in some of these tracks are outstanding and I wished that Glass Hammer would have recorded more of these solos for Perilous. The vocals of Jon Davison are again crystal clear and Yes, they strongly remind me of a particular singer of a great progressive rock band! (I'm just kidding here of course). I nearly forgot to mention that Perilous is a concept album, which is so seventies... Well, anyway, this isn't a bad album of course, but it falls short of my high expectations. I think I will put If or Cor Cordium in my CD-player again...

*** Martien Koolen (edited by Peter Willemsen)

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