Label: Gentle Art of Music/Soulfood
Release date: May 28, 2021
Production: Sylvan
Album length: 65.51 min
Genre: Neo-Progressive Rock
Rating: 9.5/10
Sylvan are a long-lived German neo-progressive rock outfit that has been on the scene for over 30 years. After eight years operating as Temporal Temptation, they switched to Sylvan in 1998 and dropped their studio debut “Deliverance” the following year. Twenty-two years later, the band’s tenth studio album, “One To Zero”, has finally landed. Sylvan staked out the standards of their musical artistry ages ago, and a solid crew of prog rock devotees values and follows it closely. Those fans demand nothing but the best from the band, since Sylvan are known for their perfectionism and huge creative commitment every time they sit down to write new music, and they’ve thoroughly spoiled their sharp-eared followers in the process.
A tenth album is no small deal. Especially with this much mileage on the clock, after a band has evolved through so much and tried and offered so many things. Still. The predecessor “Home”, a full six years back, with which Sylvan clearly wanted to deliver something new, interesting and different, didn’t quite set hearts on fire the way Sylvan did at the peaks of their creativity, when they made, say, the highly ambitious albums “Posthumous Silence” and “Artificial Paradise”. Both still count as some of the best stuff Sylvan have ever put out.
“One to Zero” is not a concept album. The lyrics are confessional and personal, so what you get is ten self-contained stories that probe even the most intimate corners of the human soul. Yes, Sylvan don’t actually say anything new on this record, but they’ve delivered a brilliantly arranged album running an hour and five minutes, with ten wildly dynamic and vividly imaginative tracks, crowned with outstanding artistic finesse. When it comes to delicate, filigree strokes and concise touches that squeeze maximum greatness out of optimizing the arrangements, Sylvan have become true masters of their craft over the years. True, Sylvan are still a version of the neo-progressive genre at their core, but especially in recent times the melting pot of their songwriting brings together a pile of interwoven elements from other genres. Sylvan absorb this phenomenon absolutely superbly these days. In a way that yields something eclectic. Unique. One of a kind. It’s a brilliant prog rock stew you can never get enough of. But that’s no longer news. It was to be expected on the new album as well. What’s fascinating is that after “Home”, which wanted to sound overly different, Sylvan took a glance back at their roots and came up with a truly top-notch achievement that never stops impressing.
The elements of the sound are once again in fascinating balance, and at moments the guitar can reach for some more serious distorted moves, as hinted at in Go Viral, which will also appeal to Muse fans (catchy chorus), while the song teasingly opens up in eighties synth sounds that brush up against fellow countrymen Alphaville. Sylvan are, after all, an old-school conglomerate drawing on the old-guard pioneers of German progressive rock, Eloy, and Pink Floyd are an almost unavoidable parallel when talking about German prog rock rhetoric. The new album also has moments where you can sense a kinship with the most artistically astute bands of the British Isles, like Marillion and I.Q., and among more recent names, Sylvan’s stringing together of moods and atmospheres is comparable to Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson and Poland’s Riverside.
The range of what they use and how they use it is exceptional. Esoteric Mellotron, Moog bits, layered string arrangements, not to mention the finesse of the added electronics, programming and sampling. There’s the incredibly listenable Start of your life, which could have been a huge hit in the eighties, carrying a touch of new wave/synth pop from the old days, with a fusion of electronic sounds and distorted guitars and super infectious, effect-laden melodies that feel stylish in terms of production aesthetics. Even today’s Simple Minds might well go for an approach like that. Another musically slick, radio-born gem is the subtle Worlds Apart in the final stretch of the album. One of the most dynamic and progressively spiced-up beauties on the record is surely On My Odyssee, where in just over six minutes the band shows off the many faces of its musical high-wire act all in one place. Amid all this, it’s perhaps more important than it seems that Marco Glühmann has stopped his vocal “experimenting” and gone back to his classic singing. On “One to Zero” he’ll break you, he’ll tear your heart apart, that’s how deep and perceptive his deeply feeling, subtle vocal character is. The singer has delivered the best he knows and can do (right now), and his performance is a chapter in itself. He shines with full intensity and enchants at every moment of this album. Encoded At Heart, with its piano intro, is one of Marco’s most expressive highlights on the record.
“One to Zero” is an absolute triumph of the band’s great artistic maturity. Six years is a long stretch, and the band used that time cleverly. They reset, took a brief look back at the past, created with the present and caught the magic. Melancholy, longing, moments that speak to the dark side but also moments through which flawless, virginal purity shines, there’s no shortage of any of it. It’s all laid out in brilliant balance. Contemplative. Perceptive. Heartfelt. The mutual dialogue of its many faces and reflections has very cunningly captured a true symbiotic relationship between all the building blocks.
What’s striking about “One To Zero” is the realization that, even though it arrives 22 years after the debut, this is an album we can call a perfect starting point for everyone who doesn’t know the band and isn’t sure where to begin. The album’s top-notch sonic maneuvers and fantastic production deserve a special mention. A masterpiece.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Bit by Bit (6:16)
2. Encoded at Heart (6:42)
3. Start of Your Life (3:14)
4. Unleashed Power (7:31)
5. Trust in Yourself (5:33)
6. On My Odyssee (6:26)
7. Part of Me (9:16)
8. Worlds Apart (3:58)
9. Go Viral (6:41)
10. Not a Goodbye (10:14)
Line-up:
Marco Glühmann – vocals
Volker Söhl – keyboards
Sebastian Harnack – bass
Matthias Harder – drums
Johnny Beck – guitar
Guest musicians:
Kalle Wallner (RPWL) – additional acoustic guitars
Yogi Lang (RPWL) – additional keyboards
Katja Flintsch – violin, viola
Bine Heller – backing vocals
