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Rating:
He's back.
As is his custom, he returns quietly, without drawing attention to himself... the friend in Music Robin doesn't need to.
One of the most anticipated releases, if not the most anticipated of the year, for me.
It took me too long to "step onto the field" and write a new page for Sophia; I could have done it right after the first listen, appreciating the new album from the former leader of the God Machine from the first notes; but it's not a great moment, as I mentioned a few days ago.
A very diluted career over time for him as a solo artist; Holding On / Getting On is the seventh album in twenty-five years.
Robin has never been in a hurry to write songs, go on tour, record, and release.
He takes all the long time he needs; he doesn't have pressures to manage. He self-produces, recording every note without having to answer to anyone... except himself.
A trusted cadre of musicians accompanies him, and once again, he emerges victorious.
An album, I'll say it right away, deserving top marks, absolutely chilling; exhilarating. And how much I need emotions at this moment!!
Ten tracks for about forty minutes that fly by, that conquer, that I've already engraved in my soul.
An unsettling start: keyboards redolent of the eighties, of electronics. Thus the first notes of the opener Strange Attractor emanate. But soon everything returns to normal; the sound becomes recognizable when Robin's guitar enters, wanting once more to scratch like in the days of the first unforgettable work of the God Machine. The rhythm rises with the entrance of a full and dynamic drum; and finally, the voice arrives...how I love it..how it warms me. Soft but clear; vast spaces ahead of me. The minutes fly, the listening elevates, mystically.
It continues with the equally riveting and brimming with rare beauty Undone Again where acoustic guitars become the sure protagonists, with distant electric echoes as a backdrop. The nocturnal and at times spectral Alive turns out to be the true, new masterpiece of Sophia; long sax notes rival with Robin's mournful singing. A feeling of melancholy, of subtle sadness; and it's always the sound of the sax that offers a finale which even reminded me of R.E.M. from Document, side B for those like me who own the vinyl.
The cheerful, bucolic, mellifluous Avalon; the nervous snap of the brief We See You (Taking Aim) where the notes become furious, raw, noisy, distorted. A successful and necessary homage to the God Machine and the epochal Scenes From The Second Storey.
The curtain falls with the instrumental Prog Rock Arop (I Know); an emotional rollercoaster, filled with highs and lows alternating. The intensity of the instruments increases. Light and darkness, day and night, black and white...But I choose once again the white, the purity...PURITY...
Ad Maiora.
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