ULYSSES - review added 7th April 2009
Album Review: The Gift Of Tears (2009)
For fans of: prog rock/metal... and going Dutch
Ulysses are a progressive rock act from the Netherlands. They play a mid-heaviness music that oscillates from out-and-out metal to the softest of synth. There's plenty of 'proper sounding' piano in the songs adding an emotional ambience.The musicianship comes across as near-faultless, and some of the arrangements are blow-you-away impressive.
However, all things considered, I'm really torn on this one. At times it sounds phenomenally good. At others it's as amateurish as a home made grot mag. A classic example is 'Guardian Angel', a song which for the most part has an epic vibe. But moments show a total lack of care. In places the multi layering (of the singing, at least) is out of kilter and frankly abysmal.
It's not as if vocalist Michael Hos has a bad voice. He isn't the greatest singer of all time, but there are moments on The Gift Of Tears when you can sit back and be genuinely impressed. But the production does him no favours whatsoever. Why go to all the trouble of making a potentially brilliant album, then not going that extra 10%. it reeks of cutting off your kneecap to spite your leg... or something like that.
Some of the more infrequent vocalizations can be pretty shocking too. On 'How Much More' there's some particularly frightening noises. The lead female singer on this song has a real soul and beauty in fleeting moments, but she (and indeed Michael Hos) lose the plot entirely when they add backing harmonies. They cross some invisible boundary into absolute aural miscreancy.
All in all The Gift Of Tears is a very good album with a veneer of cr*p smeared on it. The synth and piano by Ron Mozer is amongst the best I've heard this year, and the compositions are staggeringly great in places, but it's just that last little bit of brilliance that's flipped upside down and become the equivalent of used toilet paper.
I want to like this album, and Indeed I mostly do, but I have to mark it for what I feel in my head, not my heart. If you buy this album you will get a huge a amount of enjoyment from it, but you may end up deliberately smashing your music player against your forehead when it all goes wrong.
Check out... The piano at the start of 'Silence Of The Night'. Wow.
Track List:
1. Family Portrait
2. Guardian Angel
3. Lost
4. How Much More
5. Silence of the Night
6. Gift of Tears
7. Anat
Label: Symbioses Music
Artist's websites: Ulysses , MySpace
