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: : Arena - Pepper's Ghost : : |
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Band/Artist
Arena
Title:
Pepper & Ghost
Released
2005
Label
InsideOut |
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Track
List
1. Bedlam Fayre
2. Smoke and Mirrors
3. The Shattered Room
4. The Eyes of Lara Moon
5. Tantalus
6. Purgatory Road
7. Opera Fanatica |
: : The Players : :
Clive Nolan
keyboards and backing vocals | Mick Pointer drums | Rob Sowden vocals |
John Mitchell guitars and backing vocals | Ian Salmon bass and acoustic
guitars |
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: : Pepper's Ghost : :
 Arena, formed in 1995 by Clive Nolan and Mick
Pointer are celebrating 10 years of some of the most excellent
progressive rock music I’ve ever heard. The musical growth that this
band has seen from those early heady days of “Songs From the Lions Cage”
is remarkable to say the least.
They have remained very true to their style but have fine tuned,
updated, and clarified both their musical approach and their cosmic
point of view.
Never a band to take themselves overly serious with this 12th full
release, they continue to delve into the musical dark side looking to see
if they might be able to flash some light on the evil in the world and
the evil doers who march to the mantra of hate, prejudice, intolerance
and pain.
So Pepper's Ghost, as noted on the CD cover, consists of 7 stories of
mystery and imagination. So far so good.
The CD opens with Bedlam Fayre, which introduces the listener to the
characters that we will be introduced to in the next five songs.
Basically the story tells us of evil doers but also of the evil force
behind those evil doers. We are introduced to a mysterious group called
the Knights of the London Fog.
What you discover in the subsequent five songs is who the Knights of the
London Fog are and how they came to follow the path they are on.
From a musical point of view each song progresses and actually gets
better and better the deeper you get into the CD. As you are introduced
to the members of the Knights of the London Fog you see that they too
made choices that have brought them to a space in time where they are
seemingly the only ones who can save the world from the evil that lie
within. Man oh man this CD fires on al cylinders for me and I can’t help
but get caught up in both the music and the lyrics.
So, as you listen to each song, read the comic book like booklet that
does tend to explain where each character comes from. While small (I had
to use a magnifying glass as even with my reading glasses I could not
see the printing) once read the story line became very clear.
So tracks 2 through 6 develop each character and let you know how they
came on the path they are on. But it is track 7, “Opera Fanatica” which
is over 12 minutes long that is the icing on the cake. Musically, it
opens with operatic voices alerting the listener that a musical change
is on the way. Just as quickly John Mitchell interjects a crunch guitar
lead with Mick’s double kick bass and Ian’s driving bass rhythm melding
the entire song into a driving culmination of the story line. Each of
our scared hero’s must join the battle against the ultimate evil.
And as is expected our fearless but dark heroes destroy at least this
version of evil and the Knights of the London Fog retreat back into the
darkness to await the next foe.
Bottom line - the ultimate point is that those we see as do gooders may
well be just one slight step away from madness themselves. You’ll pick
that up as you pay attention to the actual song lyrics verses just the
cartoon story lines.
I LOVE THIS CD. It is rock, it is roll, it’s symphonic, it’s bombastic,
and it’s certainly full of all sorts of proggy points, twists and turns.
If you have never liked Arena, then I suppose you won’t like this one
either. That said, if you have only heard their say first two or three
releases and did not like those then you have not heard Arena as their
more recent releases are giant leaps from those early days culminating
in Pepper's Ghost. This is a strong band that is not only musically
expressive but lyrically poignant and topical in many ways. A CD that
must be in any fan of rock oriented progressive music.
Rating: 9.9 of 10 because nothing is musically perfect!
Reviewed By: Stephen Ellis
: : Visit the Artist’s Website : :
: : Discography : :
Songs From The Lion's Cage - 1995
Pride - 1996
Welcome To The Stage - 1997
The Cry - EP, 1997
The Visitor - 1998
The Visitor - Revisited - 1999 - Dutch fan club only release
Immortal? - 2000
Unlocking The Cage - 1995-2000 - 2001 -
Dutch fan club only release
Breakfast In Biarritz - 2001
Contagion - 2003
Radiance - 2003 fan club only release
Pepper's Ghost - 2005
Caught In The Act - 2003 - DVD |
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