ANUBIS - Hitchhiking To Byzantium

Kategorie: CD-Reviews | Genre: Artrock, Prog | Heft: Jahrgang 2014, eclipsed Nr. 161 / 6-2014 | VÖ-Jahr: 2014 | Wertung: 8/10 | Label: Birds Robe | Autor: WP


Our main focus is to transport emotions," singer Robert James Moulding told eclipsed about two years ago in a conversation. At that time the Anubis, founded in 2004, had just released their second album "A Tower Of Silence". The sentence is still valid today. "Hitchhiking To Byzantium" is not a concept album like the two previous works. But in the broadest sense it is again about a big topic, namely getting older and the experiences that people have on this "journey" and at the end of which they hopefully are happy with what they have experienced and achieved. Musically this hitchhiking trip is a trip to the invisible border between New Artrock and Neoprog. If the predecessor was a bit more at home in prog areas, the lines have now shifted to the other side. The seven Australians (new on board: formidable bassist Anton Stewart) stand for modern, symphonic, melodic rock music, in which filigree piano passages as well as fat keyboard surfaces and hard riffs alternate with elegiac guitar solos. After a rather calm beginning, "A King With No Crown" goes straight to the front with an aggressive riff, including a rousing keyboard solo. Also on "Blood Is Thicker Than Common Sense" Anubis show their hard side and come up with more complex structures and meters. Opposites are the longing title track or "Crimson Stained Romance" with Floyd hints and harmony singing. A flute is also used. Common to almost all pieces is the penchant for the hymnic-bombastic, which Anubis repeatedly gives in to, even listening to the successful "Dead Trees" or the sixteen-minute "A Room With A View". That's how emotions are fun.

Top Track: Dead Trees

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