Initially constituted by the brothers Paul and Jack Davis, Vienna Circle is now the project of the first of them, simply assisted by two faithful guests, Alex Micklewright on drums and his own wife Gemma Davis on vocals. "Secrets of the Rising Sun" is the third album of the band and comes after two first albums received as real neo-progressive rock treasures.
After an instrumental introduction mixing melodic guitar, Moog and bass with a clear tone, the first track stretches languidly around the female vocals and the guitar solos, before a final instrumental again gathering syncopated and odd rhythms, jazz-prog sounds and melodious guitar soli. The neo-prog style of the first two albums is much less present on this first epic track and the tendency will be confirmed on the following tracks.
And the new reference that will immediately jump to the ears is the one of Camel that we find more particularly in the different instrumental tracks ('Ghost Town Hideway', 'Carnival', 'Rivers') and even more in the conclusive and sumptuous 'Canyons' whose lenghts (not monotonous) send us back to the fabulous 'Ice'.
As monotony is not on the menu of Paul Davis, he shows us other facets of his talent. It is first of all a real single built in the way of 'Moonlight Shadow' which puts forward the beautiful osmosis with his wife and carries us away on its dancing rhythmic ('That Night'). The real demonstration appears especially on the eponymous track, carried by a rather heavy aggressive guitar, starting like hard-blues close to Deep Purple on which come to rest choirs a la Beatles before making an incursion towards Pink Floyd firstly soaring then evolving like 'One of These Days', to finish by a return in calmer waters, the whole in five minutes.
Moving away from the neo-progressive rock shores of the first two albums but keeping unstoppable melodies carried by a kind of red thread, Vienna Circle offers us a superb album full of variations, served by a flawless interpretation. Highly recommendable.