The Ancestry Program -
Tomorrow


(CD 2020, 77:10, freiBad 0301)

The tracks:
  1- Silver Intro(1:16)
  2- Silver Laughter(8:34)
  3- Pun Intended(7:22)
  4- Another Way To Fly(6:27)
  5- Easy For Us(10:01)
  6- Tomorrow(11:12)
  7- More To This(9:27)
  8- Tangerine Parties(6:35)
  9- Human Key(7:19)
10- No Chorus No Home(6:55)
11- Ship To Shore(1:59)

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The name The Ancestry Program didn't ring a bell, but when I was digging deeper into the four musicians, I found out the band has a lot of musical experience. The quartet is comprised by keyboard player Thomas Burlefinger who also is a member of 7 for 4, Schizofrantik's drummer Andy Lind, guitarist Mani Gruber, who used to play in the melodic rock band Boysvoice and vocalist Ben Knabe who has played with Amon Düül. Just for the record, the instruments mentioned above are their main instruments, on their debut album; Tomorrow, all musicians play multiple instruments. Among the guests are Panzerballett's Heiko Jung on bass.

Tomorrow is one of those concept albums that totally came as a surprise, musically combining parts of melodic neo progressive rock, technical progressive metal and even includes the subtle use of grunts. After the Silver Intro, the neo progressive parts; German style is dominating the melodic, catchy Silver Laughter. The nicely flowing song lines are brought with an accessible, but recognizable German accent, which never bothers during the album. One of the more powerful tracks on the album is Pun Intended, a strong composition that adds technical passages to the fine vocal parts, as well as the aforementioned occasional grunt. I think the retro soaring keyboard sound and “different” guitar solo make this my favourite on the album. Although the main musical theme of the previous song continues during Another Way To Fly, this track has lighter vocals. Which perfectly fit the song. A fine combination of old school progressive music, with more technical influences of Dream Theater's guitar stuff. Easy For Us is a smoother composition, where two vocalists combine in a ten minute track. Powerful staccato riffs and melodic parts are exchanged with numerous classical keyboard parts and defined guitars. At this point I have to credit the album's production and mix, rarely have I heard such a clear mix, that makes drums and bass sound as good as this, without losing the attention on the vocals, guitars and keyboards. The album's longest composition, the title track Tomorrow has a fine keyboard orientated part in the beginning, which, including the vocals reminds me a bit of fellow Germans RPWL. But when the power increases TAP's own progressive touch makes this another solid prog rocker. The midsection is absolutely brilliant in my opinion and is followed by a fine synth solo, working its way to a spacy end of the song. With More To This, the albums continues with accessible vocal parts; perhaps the best on the album, a very solid drum pattern into a solid track. Tangerine Parties sees mood swings, soaring keyboards, backed up with great guitars and has a very strong instrumental part toward the end, both keyboards as well as guitar excel, the keys in a fine retro way, the guitars in a modern dirty way. Human Key is dominated by a fine piano and is backed up by guest musician Axel Kühn , who adds saxophone, flute and bass clarinet to this spectacularly intense composition. Even elements of Panzerballett can be heard. Much lighter and accessible is No Chorus No Home, the fine weird keyboards are the icing on this fine composition.

Like I wrote above, I was quite surprised by the album Tomorrow. Great compositions, except for the intro and outro, the songs last from six and a half to over eleven minutes. Musically; the songs are challenging. Both melodic as well as powerful, but the band always has an unexpected, but well chosen twist somewhere in the song. Something that makes the individual tracks fascinating, but still there is a catchiness and accessibility to them. Tomorrow is an absolutely great debut and I hope to hear more about this intriguing band.

****+ Pedro Bekkers (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen)

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