LEE ABRAHAM: Colours (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

After having enchanted our ears with his previous album, "The Season Turns", released barely 18 months ago, and just as he was rejoining the Galahad stable, Lee Abraham, a true stakhanovist, released his sixth solo album, soberly entitled "Colours", a production for which he invited a lot of prestigious names to hold the vocals by his side.

If his previous work had seen the bassist/guitarist migrate his style towards a neo-prog rid of his metallic side, "Colours" goes a little further in this direction, looking strongly towards an A.O.R. favouring melody and efficiency above all else, while nevertheless taking the time to develop his different themes by matching them with judicious instrumental bridges. And it is of course on the side of Asia that the eyes will turn at first, especially the Geoff Downes/Steve Payne period.

Just like the title track that inaugurates the album, 'Always Yours' has all the ingredients of the genre's successful recipes: an immediate melody served by an energetic voice against a background of floating keyboards, supported by a rhythmic bass and drums that are heavy but not too heavy, interspersed with an efficient instrumental bridge that serves as a pretext for a luminous guitar solo. At the crossroads of pop and neo-progressive, these first three tracks immediately strike the ear: simple, shimmering, dynamic and effective.

As for 'Find Another Way', it will bring a little more variety, with a very OMD beginning in the sonorities, then a development close to Toto before a final carried by a powerful and beautiful chorus. And naturally, all these ingredients will be deployed in apotheosis in a last epic track that seems even too short despite its 14 minutes, carried by Gary Chandler's warm voice and punctuated by a 4 minutes instrumental finale that seems somewhat disconnected from the first part of the track, but admirably conclude a luminous record.

After these 50 minutes of pleasure, some may argue that Lee Abraham delights in ease, neglecting the very essence of progressive rock to deliver catchy and immediate melodies. This would be a real insult to his talents as a melodist (precisely) and arranger, and especially to the pleasure and emotions felt when listening to these seven new compositions, which remains in the end the most important thing, whatever the style attached to the music. - Official website

LEE ABRAHAM

COLOURS

F2

PROGRESSIVE ROCK