Pictorial Wand – Faces Of Our Fathers

Mattis Sørum impressed many with the PICTORIAL WAND debut double album A SLEEPER’S AWAKENING back in 2006, and has finally released a follow up. As with the first, and...

Release Date: Out Now

Genre: Progressive Rock

Links: http://www.pictorialwand.com

Links: http://www.myspace.com/picwand

Line up for Face of our Fathers:

Instruments:

Mattis Sorum – Guitars, bass, keyboards, organ, piano, percussion

Arild Sveum – Organ, piano

Tomas di Sansimone – Drums

Gunhild Olaussen – Violins

Live Kostöl – Cellos

Hogne Moe – Flutes

Voices:

Tore Christer Storlid – Hope

Gry Tronslien – Love

Julie Christensen – Reason

Tracklist:

1.The Wasteland

2.Struggle Of Autumn Leaves

3.Prince Of War

4.The Ghosts Start Dancing

5.Verse Of Despair

6.Face Of Our Fathers

7.Circle’s End

Mattis Sørum impressed many with the PICTORIAL WAND debut double album A SLEEPER’S AWAKENING back in 2006, and has finally released a follow up. As with the first, and as with so many prog metal releases, FACE OF OUR FATHERS is a concept album of the highest order. The general concept that is followed throughout the album is best described with this paragraph I have borrowed from the PICTORIAL WAND website.

“The main theme of this album is how the former generations leave behind an inheritance for the next, and how they in turn try to deal with it. We will see a pulling between pride, reason, love and hope in the struggle for their own needs and believes and the fulfilling of what is expected of them from the former generations. The circle ends with father and son facing each other on the battlefield …”

A grand idea to be sure, and one that whilst I did struggle to keep up with in spots, was fun to dig into the songs to decipher the relevance to the storyline. The main artist that sprung to mind when I started listening to this album was Arjen Lucassen’s project AYREON. Not so much in the sound department, but the similarities lie in the fact that Sørum has hired a large cast of musicians and vocalists, and given each vocalist a specific role to play throughout the entire album.

The combination of two male and two female voices works very well throughout the album’s seven songs, and the chemistry built between the four in very evident in THE GHOSTS START DANCING and my personal highlight STRUGGLE OF AUTUMN LEAVES. The addition of various woodwind and other instruments gives some of the songs a sort of folk-metal vibe to them, but not enough to get the styles confused. FACE OF OUR FATHERS is a clear-cut progressive metal release that features some superb musicality, stylishly technical songwriting and enough melodic pieces to still be catchy and memorable in places.

I was very impressed by the overall quality of this release and have no hesitation whatsoever to recommend it to any fans of AYREON, QUEENSRYCHE and even maybe JETHRO TULL fans can find something of value here.

Written by Zeezee

Ratings Zeezee  8/10

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