Touchstone and The Reasoning–The Duchess, 16/10/12

Sadly, it’s less easy these days for our group to get together as frequently as we used to. The days when we would head off to a pub to see a covers band if nothing else took our fancy are now behind us and that’s where tonight’s support act, Marc Atkinson, is found on a regular basis. But that’s just one string to his bow – as well as having released a small handful of solo albums, with another on the way, Marc is also involved with a number of “side” projects, including Nine Stones Close, Manadalaband and, with Brendan Eyre, the long-gestating Riversea which (finally) saw a stunningly beautiful album released earlier this year. Tonight, instead of his “usual” covers, we were treated to a mixture of tracks from some of these projects, with particular emphasis on his solo and Riversea material. Marc’s lyrics reflect the various aspects of life – childhood, growing up, the effects of religion – and seem to be heavily influenced by his family. His vocals are rich and full of emotion and, despite the fact that it is just him and an acoustic guitar on stage, playing stripped down versions of some of the songs, he soon has a large proportion of the crowd taking notice and applauding each song. in the past, it has been obvious that Marc is adept at entertaining a pub crowd in a party atmosphere. It’s nice to see that his own material is capable of entertaining a normal gig crowd to the same level. Hopefully, there will be more chances in the future to see him perform his own stuff. (There has even been a slight hint, not from Marc, that there may be a chance of seeing a full band version of Riversea perform live, although I’m not sure how serious that was…)
A couple of years ago, The Reasoning featured in my gig of the year. A few months ago, Touchstone played York for the first time and blew me and Roj away. Tonight saw both band’s playing York, thankfully as part of their Adventures In The City co-headlining tour, meaning that we didn’t have to choose between them.
I believe that the bands alternated which would be on stage first throughout the tour. Tonight, it was The Reasoning who played first, coming on stage to a cinematic backing track. The current line-up is quite a bit different from the last time I saw them perform – slimmed down to a five-piece and now with just one guitarist due in part to the sad disappearance of Owain Roberts and, if you believe what you read in some places, the less-than-harmonious departure of Dylan Thompson. Whatever the reasons, though, the band have, on stage at least, put these troubles behind them (or, perhaps more accurately, can ignore them for an hour or so). The single guitar sound allows Tony Turrell’s keyboards to feature a bit more in the mix and it is also Tony who now provides the majority of second/backing vocals. Unfortunately, from where we were standing, Rachel Cohen’s vocals were a little indistinct, meaning that even some of the songs I was familiar with, albeit with slightly different musical arrangements, with took a while to register. That said, there was an energy to her performance which more than made up for the muddiness and some of the crowd obviously recognised the tracks more quickly than I did - Matt Cohen’s somewhat nervously stoic face cracked into a wide grin at the reception that second song Dark Angel received. The set comprised of tracks from the full, four album history of the band, with particular emphasis on the latest album – Adventures In Neverland. Awakening, introduced by a superb keyboard solo which somehow seamlessly included the Benny Hill theme and The Thirteen Hour rubbed shoulders with No Friend Of Mine, Forest Of Hands And Teeth, with its moody opening and a mid-section which gives it a somewhat noirish feel, Adventures In Neverland, whose stunning instrumental section would have convinced me to buy the album if I wasn’t already going to (and did on the night) and Omega Point, which saw the band encroaching on Muse territory with a song about the end of the universe. Audience participation came in the form of Aching Hunger, which also saw Touchstone’s Moo Bass join the band on stage. Between songs, Rachel interacted playfully with the crowd, many of whom it appeared had been to other gigs on the tour, knowing what was coming when the new album and merchandise was being touted. Despite the vocal “issues” this was another brilliant performance by the band.
Touchstone took to the stage with slightly less flamboyance that The Reasoning and, as last time, it seemed to me that vocalist Kim Seviour took a little while to shrug off an apparent nervous air. Initially, she looked slightly wide-eyed and a little stilted in her dancing. She soon got over it, though, and by Shadow her “booty shaking” was a lot more natural. We had moved slightly closer to the stage by now and Kim’s vocals were a lot clearer than Rachel’s. With no new album to promote, this was more of a “best of” set and, again, featured songs from the band’s full back catalogue. If anything, despite being a shorter set, tonight was even better than when we saw them earlier in the year. I’m less familiar with Touchstone’s output than I am with The Reasoning’s and there are were at least two tracks played tonight that I couldn’t identify, but each song played, from Shadow to its sequel Shadows Fall, from Blacktide to Zinomorph and especially the brilliant Wintercoast comes across as an epic, containing a riot of drumming from Henry Rogers, which somehow manages never to overpower the music. Adam Hodgson’s guitar still gives the songs a slightly-more-heavy-than-prog feel while Rob Cottingham’s keyboards manage to help maintain the true prog sound. But, in all honesty, once she has got over her apparent initial nervousness it is Kim, with her banter with the band, introductions to the songs – “I don’t like nasty people, so I write songs about them and sing them passive aggressively..” – her dancing during the instrumentals or the way she peers out from behind her fringe and dark eye makeup, oozing a kind of coy sophistication despite being dressed more for a night on the town than as a rock-chick, with the only concession to the expected image being a single leather wristband, who is queen of the performance.
Finally, both bands and Marc Atkinson returned to the stage for an ensemble encore of Tears For Fears’ Mad World – perhaps the best encore ever.
At a time when femme-fronted prog bands seem to be making a bigger impact than ever, with both these bands, along with Panic Room, having recently signed deals with record labels, it’s nice to see two having such an obvious good time while touring. Hopefully, we will see more of them in the future, either together or on separate tours.

CD Review: The Reasoning - Adverse Camber

Tuesday 4th May: By now a lot of fans of The Reasoning will have already picked up their copy of the band's third album, Adverse Camber, which was available to buy on the tour before the general release date of yesterday. In fact, the original pressing of 3,000 has already sold out (but worry not, more are on their way.) I picked mine up at the York gig and it's been in and out of various CD players since.

First, a word about the cover, which is a radical departure from the artwork covers of the first two albums. While it doesn't scream "prog!" at you, something about it does remind me of Storm Thorgerson's work for Pink Floyd. I'm not sure what it is about it as, being honest, it looks nothing like any particular Floyd cover - maybe it's the slight surrealism in the background pictures - but from the first time I saw it, that was the thought that has popped into my head.

Adverse Camber is not as dark as the previous album, Dark Angel, or, even Awakening, the band's debut. It does, however, retain some of the heaviness which marks The Reasoning as a little different from most female-fronted prog bands. The lighter tone may have something to do with Dylan Thompson seeming to take more of a back stage in terms of vocals, allowing Rachel Cohen's almost choral vocals to be front and centre for almost the entire album, with Dylan really only sharing lead vocals with Rachel on Through The Now, which actually ends up being more of a triple-header as new backing vocalist Maria Owen also gets a chance to shine during parts of the song. (Not that she doesn't shine as a backing vocalist - in fact, along with Dylan, she provides some of the best backing vocals I can remember hearing, both on the album and during the live set.)

Musically, a lot of the album seems not to be made up of full tunes, but snatches of music which ebb and flow around the vocals, never allowing the listener to get bored or to guess what form the songs are going to take. The music on the album varies between the neo-classical, with the piano opening to Script Switch Trigger, and some very heavy metal-like guitar solos. The overall effect, when mixing the vocals and the music is something that hovers just to the light side of the mid point between traditional prog rock and the likes of Evanescence.

Highlights for me are the Eastern influenced keyboards and choppy guitars of The Thirteenth Floor and the aforementioned, ballad-like, Script Switch Trigger, my favourite song on the album, which showcases Rachel's crystal clear enunciation. (Apparently the title comes from a theory of humour but I didn't follow Rachel's explanation from the stage and have just been more confused by internet searches...) The Nobody Effect, contains the album's heaviest guitar work overlaid with some subtle keyboards but I'm afraid I am unable to listen to the chorus without being reminded of Genesis' Driving The Last Spike.

Adverse Camber is a well-above average album and, like its cover, is definitely a bit of a departure from the band's previous output. However, while there's nothing actually wrong with the album, I still find myself preferring Awakening.

Track listing:

1. Diamonds And Leather
2. The Nobody Effect
3. The Thirteenth Floor
4. Through The Now
5. Script Switch Trigger
6. 14

Musicians:

Rachel Cohen - Vocals & Percussion
Dylan Thompson - Vocals, Electric/Acoustic Guitars & Mandolin
Matthew Cohen - Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals, Mandolin & Percussion
Maria Owen - Vocals
Tony Turrell - Keyboards & Backing Vocals
Owain Roberts - Electric Guitar
Jake Bradford-Sharp - Drums & Percussion

Reasoning With The Dream-weaver

Thursday 22nd April: I sometimes feel that I'm running out of things to say about the bands I see. Especially bands that I see (or have seen) reasonably regularly. If I like them, I'm unlikely to change my opinion. (And, let's face it, if I don't like them, I'm unlikely to see them regularly.) Also, regular acts aren't going to change their line-ups, or even their set lists too dramatically, so there isn't really going to be that much new that I can say. The likes of, "xxx were superb" or "another cracking performance" will begin to sound repetitive and, perhaps, gushy and aren't going to win me any awards for creative writing. There are times, however, when I don't care.

Tonight, I thought that I'd struggle to come up with anything new to say about Morpheus Rising. They are certainly one of my favourite local bands (I think I've said that before) and that would be the fourth time I've seen them perform in just over a year. The relatively short sets (on all but one occasion, I have seen them as support acts) mean that they have managed to stay reasonably fresh by mixing the sets up slightly. While I was expecting to enjoy the performance tonight, I didn't realise by how much.

I don't know what it was - maybe I found a rare sweet spot for sound in Fibbers, maybe it was my proximity to the stage which gave me a clearer view of the ease and sheer enjoyment with which the band play. It might even have been a growing familiarity with the songs, which meant I could relax a bit more while listening. Whatever it was, tonight was easily the best performance I have seen from them. Graeme's vocals were as clear as I've ever heard them, Pete and Daymo's guitar-playing was simply fantastic with some previously (to me, anyway) hidden harmonies becoming apparent, and Andy and Gibbo's rhythms pounded me across the chest.

Even better was the fact that the much-anticipated new material finally put in an appearance. Just two songs, In The End and set-ender Hold On (possibly a brave move ending on a new song, but it worked) but they were very welcome and just as good as the more familiar material. The new songs and the fact that my personal favourite, Those Who Watch, made it back into the set after being missing last time around, gave tonight's performance an added "Wow!" factor. Given that most of the audience would have been here for the headline act, I suspect Morpheus Rising picked up some new fans tonight, and deservedly so. Sadly, I think this will be the last time I see the band this year and there is, that I know of, no word on the proposed album. Still, it gives me something to look forward to...

At the back end of last year, when I first heard that Morpheus Rising were to be supporting The Reasoning tonight, I had heard of the headliners, but that was about it. I knew that they were part of the loose "family" of bands surrounding Mostly Autumn and that they had supported Fish in York in 2008 but that was it. I hadn't heard any of their output but I knew that there was a good chance that I'd like it and definitely wanted to take the opportunity to see them live. Then they had a website sale and I managed to pick up both their albums very cheaply. Once they hand arrived and I'd had a chance to listen to them, there was no doubt that I would be attending tonight's gig.

There have been line-up changes since the second album, Dark Angel, was released and the latest, Adverse Camber (which they are currently touring) was recorded and the latter is as different from the former as that one was from the debut, Awakening. Not radically different, but enough to show a progression. The Reasoning have a darker edge than some of the "related" bands and can be a little heavier musically, which is counterpointed nicely by Rachel Cohen's lovely voice.

Tonight's set was made up of songs from all three albums. Indeed, it opened with Awakening - first track from the first album - a track which shows the difference between Rachel's almost delicate vocals and Dylan's incredibly powerful voice. There was a couple of times when the sound wavered slightly but, for the most part, this was another incredible performance. Very tight playing which produced an almost solid wall of music. Unfortunately, Fibbers' smallish stage looked a little crowded and new keyboard player Tony Turrell was relegated to a satanic brooding presence at the back, while I could barely see Jake on the drums at all (although you could certainly hear him and what a star he was!) The other new member, the red-haired firecracker Maria Owen, seemed to own the stage from the middle, dancing as though her life depended on it, playing acoustic guitar (which, being honest, I could barely make out) and producing some incredibly powerful and clear backing vocals.

The set wasn't all dark and heavy. Two acoustic songs - (from memory, but I might be wrong) Chasing Rainbows and Dark Angel - showed a nice variety and provided a welcome lull from the more energetic numbers. Rachel is a near-perfect front-woman, engaging well with the audience (a lot of whom seemed to be regulars) and the whole band seemed to enjoy performing (which, I assume is half the battle...)

With a set weighing in at around an hour and a half, and an encore which started with Owain Roberts playing Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here before morphing into another track from Adverse Camber, this was as good a performance as I expected it to be, if not better.

Tonight's two acts bands might, on paper, not immediately fit together - one heavy metal, one prog rock. Indeed with many of the other current crop of prog bands it might not have worked as well as it did, but with The Reasoning's darker side, it was a better fit than you might have expected. The combination and the performances meant that this is easily my favourite gig of the year so far and it's going to take something very special to beat it.