Jolly -
The Audio Guide To Happiness (Part II)


(CD 2013, 56:12, Inside Out Music)

The tracks:
  1- Guidance Three
  2- Firewall
  3- You Against The World
  4- Aqualand And The 7 Suns
  5- Dust Nation Bleak
  6- Golden Divide
  7- Guidance Four
  8- Lucky
  9- While We Slept In Burning Shades
10- Despite The Shell
11- As Heard On Tape
12- The Grand Utopia

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Jolly are a progressive rock band from New York City consisting of Anadale (vocals, guitar), Joe Reilly (keyboards), Anthony Rondinone (bass) and Louis Abramson (drums). Jolly's debut album Forty-Six Minutes, Twelve Seconds Of Music (2009) was a great one for fans of bands like Oceansize, Amplifier and The Pineapple Thief. The reviews of this album were all rather good and led to a European tour with Riverside and a record deal with InsideOut Music/Century Media records.

In 2011 The Audio Guide To Happiness (part I) (see review) got a four star rating in Background Magazine. It had been described as a breathtaking progressive rock album. The album ended with the following female spoken words: 'this concludes part one, please insert disc two.' At the start of The Audio Guide To Happiness (part II) the same lady welcomes you back. Then the band start with Firewall, a dazzling Devin Townsend-like masterpiece and in my opinion one of the best progressive tracks of 2013 so far. It contains raw prog with stunning and beautiful vocal lines.

Unfortunately Jolly are unable to maintain this high quality level during the remainder of the album. But it still leaves us with 55 minutes of well-written, brilliantly performed and produced prog rock and prog metal. This'second audio guide' breathes a dark and dense sound in which the rasping voice of Anadale fits amazingly fine. His voice reminds me of the voice of Mike Patton (Faith No More) and even more of Corey Taylor (Slipknot) since his Stone Sour-project manifests a lot of similarity with this album of Jolly. All in all, this second audio guide to happiness is just a tiny bit less than part one, simply because the latter opens so well. Now go and check The Audio Guide To Happiness (part II) yourself!

****- Gert Bruins (edited by Peter Willemsen)

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