Enchant
The Great Divide

The longest, most discussed, and anticipated wait for a new album in the prog/alternative scene is surely that of Tool, now inevitably destined to reach a decade; but in the meantime, others have come and gone: last year, Fates Warning returned with a new album 9 years after the last one, and in the early months of the year, the less renowned A.C.T returned after 8 years. And then there are Enchant, equally unheralded, who outdo all these names by taking a full 11 years! Their last studio album was the excellent “Tug of War” (possibly one of their best) from 2003, followed the year after by “Live at Last” (I wonder if I will ever get my hands on the DVD…). They ended up on “Chi l’ha visto?” and we wondered if they would ever really return; personally, I had stopped believing after seeing Ted Leonard join Spock’s Beard. But in the end, Enchant have returned, and I must say the long wait was worth it.

“The Great Divide” is an album decidedly less hard than those released in the early 2000s; it has slightly edgy sounds but shows a certain departure from that hard prog of their more recent past and seems instead to navigate in the more neo-prog waters of their early years, albeit with a more modern sound. In short, it is an album distinctly in service of melody (always a strength of the band)… and what a melody it is!

This is surely thanks to the keyboard layers, more dreamy and delicate than ever, which almost seem to confer a “relaxing” touch to the melodies, very suitable for the evening and ideal after a tiring day at work. Lots of melody also in the guitar passages, and the vocal performance of Ted Leonard, a rather underrated vocalist, is also impactful. Truthfully, flashes of virtuosity are not missing: the guitar and keyboard solos are not entirely occasional but seem to be mixed with the melodies, following them in an almost natural manner, to the point that we hardly even notice their presence; the same goes for the drumming, which offers some good insights. Also worth mentioning is the bass work, which once again stands out, as it always has in Enchant’s works (symbolic is the intro of “Here and Now”, as well as the slaps in the title track).

And it must be admitted that no track fails in this intent to deliver truly intense melodies; there is no need to mention any in particular because they all do their duty in the same way and with the same intensity; the track that perhaps stands apart from this spirit is “All Mixed Up”, harder and more tied to previous albums but also the one that leaves the least mark.

In short, a return from Enchant that is absolutely appreciated. “The Great Divide” can comfortably be placed among the band’s most successful albums, alongside milestones like “A Blueprint of the World”, “Juggling 9 Or Dropping 10”, and “Tug of War”. Anyone slightly tired of the most daring prog and looking for a less demanding, more stripped-down, and purely melodic prog album need look no further than this album.