GLASS HAMMER: Valkyrie (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

If the inspiration of some bands seems to fade over the years, this is certainly not the case for Glass Hammer, which seems to improve with age. Not that their previous productions were bad, far from it. Glass Hammer carries high the colours of an old school progressive stamped 70's and none of its records are unpleasant to listen to. But the obvious admiration that the band had at that time, and more particularly for Yes, had ended up to bog him down in a routine, to the point of transforming him into a clone of his model ("If", "Cordium") and to generate albums without surprise ("Ode to Echo").

But Glass Hammer must undoubtedly read the webzines that reproached him more and more for his inclination to parody the great Yes because "The Breaking of the World" (2015) broke with what had become a bad habit, taking a little distance from Jon Anderson's band compositions without denying his filiation. "Valkyrie", a concept album about the trauma that war can inflict on a man, takes a little more distance, abandoning the sometimes superficial lightness of the previous albums for a darker and more personal music. The dreamy and poetic passages, reminiscent more of Genesis of the early days than Yes, are counterbalanced by much heavier moments which regularly darken the atmosphere, the album ending with three particularly melancholic tracks.

Nevertheless, Glass Hammer doesn't lose its sense of musicality for all that, delivering an inventive progressive with a lot of vintage keyboards (Keith Emerson, Tony Banks and Rick Wakeman's fans will be over the moon), a very free bass which doesn't only ensure the rhythm, a very dynamic drum set, guitars more focused on riffs and arpeggios than demonstrative soli and an alternation of male and female vocals. The melodies frequently change theme but always remain fitting, never aggressive or dissonant, played by musicians who hate repetition and simple rhythms.

Susan Bogdanowicz, who has occasionally accompanied the band for many years, is taking the lead singer role after the successive defections of Jon Davison and Carl Groves, giving the line to Steve Babb and Fred Schendel. Listening to the result, one comes to wonder why the band didn't have this idea earlier. Apart from the fact that its singer knows how to create emotion without artifice, she frees Glass Hammer a little more from the shadow of Yes in which the range of Davison and, to a lesser extent, Groves kept it. An idea all the more judicious since, for the male voices, Babb and Schendel fare rather better than Groves.

At the same time homogeneous in its purpose and diversified in its execution, "Valkyrie" is a rich, varied, well played album with a very clean production. The music immediately speaks to the prog fan, all the more if he likes the 70's period, although some passages show an unusual modernity for Glass Hammer. So let yourself be tempted by a good hour of fun! - Official website

GLASS HAMMER

VALKYRIE

AUTRE LABEL

PROGRESSIVE ROCK