Ashbury
Endless Skies

Let's face it: the way we listen to music has changed a lot nowadays. We often rely on the internet, with the downside that you end up absorbing a lot of stuff in a very short time. That's why you risk forgetting everything, already by the next day...

Of course, there are those who remain faithful to "in-room" formats, such as CDs or vinyl; the fact remains that listening on the internet actually has some utility: it allows you to listen for free (or almost) to the music that attracts you, protecting wallets and prepaid cards from products that could turn out to be unwanted and cursed by the end of the listening session.

With Ashbury, the opposite happened to me: I regretted it! I am indeed one of those who prefer the physical edition of a given album, I like to see my furniture fill year after year, I like to touch the fruit of my always green musical knowledge with my hands.

How I wish I had taken this disc blindly. It's not a masterpiece, let's be clear. But I had a really nice surprise.

Very little is known about the band - as underground demand - except that it's a project put together in the late seventies by brothers Rob and Randy Davis; that this Endless Skies is from 1983; and that finally it presents itself in all its scarce fame as one of the most interesting works of this veiled musical reality.

Looking at the artwork and hearing the chivalrous epic of the opener The Warning, it seemed to me that the musicians wanted to ride the wave of the then emerging epic metal, trying to imitate - in a lighter form - the style and deeds of the various Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, and all that jazz... but it’s not exactly like that!
True that many bands at the time had already followed the evolution of heavy music, converting from hard rock to heavy metal; however, Ashbury preferred to stay one step back and not push too much on the power.

Endless Skies could indeed easily be described as a tribute to Blackmore and his Rainbow. Apart from the "hard rock swagger" that epitomizes Take Your Love Away and the instrumental anonymity that constitutes No Mourning, the album manages to maintain that evocative and magical feeling that so closely calls back the magic of Rising.

As expected, the rhythm section never gets caught up in delusions of grandeur and thus allows the Davis brothers to do their dirty work on the guitars: the highlight of this album!

"Sabbath-like" riffs and dreamy guitar solos alternate with acoustic introductions and interludes, with a fairytale-like hue, almost "Andersian" and seem to paradoxically anticipate the atmosphere of Blackmore's Night: listen to Twilight to believe. The vocal parts are also very beautiful, especially in the choruses of MadMan and Mystery Man respectively. Clear and noteworthy production, even considering we're talking about an album that emerged from the musical underground.

Again, I regretted it! Now you tell me what you think of the album. Personally, after days of listening, I can tell you that at the next record fair, I will look very carefully in the rock album section, letter A...