Call Upon The Author

Hype is a funny thing. It can make you famous with everyone even before they’ve had a chance to hear you, and this can be such a curse.

According to their press release, The Enid have been on a long hiatus. They haven't been around since their split in 1988, but have returned to inflict their prog-rock on an unsuspecting world once more. And how is it? Well...

Thomas White decided, while touring for his current album, The Maximalist, to do his own take of songs, that were already created. This is pretty brave, as it could either horribly wrong, or amazingly right. Fortunately, Thomas picked the right songs to cover.

Sometimes, it seems, life likes to imitate the movies. The fact that Mike Connaris, a recording studio producer, first heard Brooke Sharkey’s voice floating through an open window and subsequently offered her free use of his studio, appears to be one of these times. Listening to Brooke’s calm and relaxed vocals it’s hard not to be enthralled in the same spell that captured Connaris. Every now and then, there are bursts of song in which her voice is reminiscent of Liv Kristine’s, of the Leaves’ Eyes persuasion, and the guitar remains a gentle but prominent companion throughout the five-track EP, A Taste Of Truth.

Long time coming is an understatement, Ark is the second solo album from the former Dead Can Dance man and is the follow up to 1999’s ‘The Eye Of The Hunter’. This is truly a solo album in every respect, recorded in his own studio and written and performed solely by him this is both liberating and limiting in the overall results.

Well, let’s be frank and jump straight in by saying I don’t see what the fuss is about. Maybe its because I’m not used to the sort of music this band plays. Whilst Mojo pronounced them one of their top bands of 2009 and they received a nomination for the Best Breakthrough Act with in the Mojo Honours (needless to say I don’t think they won), it might be clear that they are meant to be something really breathtaking.

To read the accompanying press release it would seem The Hundred In The Hands pretty much cover everything from punk to hip-hop with a little French Disco for good measure… oh good.