Artist: Life Line Project
Label: Self-released
Release: 2009
Runtime: 55:52
Rating: 4/5
Behind every musician and band there’s a story directly tied to why they make music in the first place. Most are everyday stories, but some are downright heartbreaking. The story of Erik de Beer and his Life Line Project is surely one of those. Erik de Beer is a Dutch multi-instrumentalist who has been making music practically his whole life, but for a long time he shared nothing with the wider public, preferring to stay in the scene’s “underground.” When he was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, everything changed, and he decided to revive all of his abandoned musical projects. That’s how Life Line Project came back to life: de Beer wanted to leave his mark in the place where he felt at home – music. After releasing a few albums and being welcomed among the forgers of the Dutch prog-rock scene, he got the news that the original diagnosis had been wrong and that he’d go on to live a normal life after all. That surely fired Erik up even more to keep going and grow in his newly found love, as his fifth album “The King” shows. Its concept was drawn up way back in 1976, but it only saw the light of day in 2009. The album is also a major milestone in de Beer’s body of work.
“The King” is a milestone in several ways – Life Line Project becomes a recognizable name, and at the same time it marks the start of a genre revolution for the band, who are slowly but steadily moving on from their recognizable symphonic-rock sound and discovering the wonders of jazz fusion. Still, “The King” stands firmly on the ground of symphonic-flavored progressive rock, with plenty of flute, classical guitar, vocal harmonies and other hallmark symphonic-rock ingredients. Listeners get to enjoy five tracks over a good fifty-odd minutes, with the closing track “The King” running a little over 36 minutes and made up of 11 parts, so we can easily call “The King” a concept album.
“Opening” is a very promising start that tells us by its sound alone that this is music from the seventies. Powerful keyboard sections interwoven with excellent drumming and a Moog solo make for a fine time machine for a 40-year trip into the past. “Is This The End” is a track written when de Beer still believed he was dying of cancer. It was meant to be Life Line Project’s final track, Erik’s musical farewell. It also serves up vocals by Mauschke Kartosonte, which are extremely unusual and, to my taste, don’t fit the song – I wouldn’t exactly call it falsetto, but it doesn’t always sit right with the instrumental backdrop. Otherwise, the track is brimming with inspired interplay between guitar and flute. “Free Passage” is a short lesson in keyboard playing, an energetic, cheerful, major-key track that gets cut across a few times by the looming darkness of the organ tones, which probably matches Erik’s feelings at the time and is why it’s placed so well after “Is This The End,” since at moments it sounds like a victory dance. “Dusk” is built on atmosphere, on menacing ambience, on tender, eerily beautiful harmonies, on medieval tones and troubadour notes. It’s an incredibly moving track that sneaks under the listener’s ribcage without them noticing and gets their heart pumping.
The final part of “The King,” a half-hour masterpiece, is further proof of de Beer’s musical excellence. It runs from “Dusk”-like sections, where the music reaches us through its emotion, all the way to heavier parts where we helplessly bang our heads back and forth to explosive symphonies. I still find it hard to get past Kartosonte’s vocals, but that doesn’t hurt the overall picture too much. “The King” is, by the way, dedicated to Ceaucescu, the Romanian dictator of the seventies, which is also the whole concept behind “The King.”
At times Erik de Beer’s guitar skills recall his Dutch countryman Jan Akkerman, which is a compliment in itself. Considering he came up with most of the music himself, it all comes together into one regal whole; it follows the Anglo-Saxon medieval idea of art – a work has to be both instructive and entertaining. And “The King” is all that and then some.
Lineup
Maruschka Kartosonto – vocals
Peter Van Der Stel – vocals
Yvette Vrij – vocals
Jody Van Der Gijse – backing vocals
Elsa de Beer – flute
Dineke Visser – oboe
Anneke Verhagen – clarinet
Ada Bienfait – bassoon
Jessica ter Horst – recorder
Bram Vroon – guitar
Erik de Beer – assorted guitars, piano, keyboards, mandolin, lute, bass guitar, backing vocals
Ramon Bergwerff – bass guitar
Ludo de Murianos – drums, percussion, tambourine, triangle
Production
Music Monkey
Tracklist
1. Opening (5:00)
2. Is this the End? (5:51)
3. Free Passage (2:36)
4. Dusk (4:15)
5. The King (37:58)
