Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Wishbone Ash
Label: Talking Elephant Records
Released: 2007
Running time: 49:38
Rating: 3/5
Here comes the “green man”. He comes in peace. He comes to save Earth, which has been taken over by a virus called “Humanity”! He comes to spread love. Utopian, right? Cinematic? Sold a million times over. Whatever. The vibe is positive, so why turn our backs on it with sarcasm? This time around, the central motif of the Wishbone Ash album is a sermon in the “green tongue”. The red planet behind the green messiah figure is supposed to represent global warming, the sea level in the background is critically high, catastrophic floods are on the horizon, and the wind turbine blades on the cover, according to Powell, symbolize the crucifixion of the planet.
The lineup has gone through yet another change for the new album. As if there hadn’t been enough of those in Wishbone Ash history already? This time it’s the drummer’s seat, where Ron Weston was replaced by the much younger Joseph Crabtree, who has previously worked with Scottish neo-prog outfit Pallas.
“The Power Of Eternity” came out just a year after its predecessor “Clan Destiny” (2006). It was recorded in a mere 22 days at Blue Jay studio in the middle of the US state of Massachusetts, the very same studio that the “good old” Aerosmith once used. “Clan Destiny” was recorded right there too. Even so, the difference in sound between the two albums is actually bigger than between “Clan Destiny” and “Bona Fide” (2002), and four years passed between those two. “The Power Of Eternity” has a colder, more controlled and thinner sound (guitars and bass). The pyramid-style filling of the sonic spectrum isn’t condensed as successfully as on “Clan Destiny” and/or “Bona Fide”, so the album doesn’t have such a strong live-playing feel, as you’d normally expect from a band this experienced and wise to every trick in the book. The band didn’t use keyboards on this album.
“The Power Of Eternity” does carry all the classic trademarks of Wishbone Ash. First and foremost, there’s Andy Powell’s pleasant, instantly recognizable voice with its esoteric overtones. It again sounds mildly “Wetton-esque”, ideal for combining with multi-part vocal harmonies, which the band once more puts to good use on the material for this album. The strong backbone in blues music is classically present too, and the quartet, as per the usual rule, airs it out with the trademark implantation of twin harmonies in thirds (in the case of Wishbone Ash, of pioneering, revolutionary weight). These form an integral part of the stylistic recognizability and uniqueness of the Wishbone Ash sound. All the songs, of course, try to be spiced up with the signature interwoven soloing of both guitars. In Manninen, the Finn who replaced his countryman and protégé Ben Granfelt on “Clan Destiny”, Powell has found a solid pillar and an equal partner in crime for effectively keeping the Wishbone Ash legacy alive in new times. The element of Celtic folk pastoral is of course present on the album as well. It’s most obvious in the acoustic instrumental Northern Lights, but it sneaks into almost every song in a larger or smaller dose, its content usually depending on how much of the blues element the arrangement of an individual Wishbone Ash song takes up. That pastoral element carries over very clearly into the later part of the album, on the tracks Yours Indulgence and Disappearing.
Hope Springs Eternal confirms that the new rhythm section is the real deal, with bassist Bob Skeat masterfully filling the available space under the guitar riffs, and his great talents also prove useful in the excellent Happiness, or in the transition between verse and chorus in Dancing In The Shadows. In general, though, “The Power Into Eternity” suffers from lacking a song that would lodge itself in your memory and keep echoing in your head long after the album has been spinning in whatever CD player you happen to have. Even the album’s flagship tracks suffer from the fact that Wishbone Ash aren’t 100% convincing this time in reaching the “crescendo” of the chorus melodies. That goes especially for the opening The Power and the one right behind it, Driving A Wedge, which start out promising but never reach atmospheric peaks in the choruses. We touch on the same issue in the closing Hope Springs Eternal. Still, the dominant feeling this time is that most of the new ideas on this album just don’t work as well as they could. That feeling clings to the album especially in its second half, the last five tracks, where the up-tempo Growing Up, with its signature, infectious trail of harmonized guitar thirds, is really the only factor breathing a bit more dynamics and that recognizable Wishbone Ash kinetics and punch into this stretch. The album’s sense of coldness and alienation is deepened by the aforementioned Your Indulgence, Northern Lights and also Disappearing. There’s nothing wrong with that. Simple as that. You could say Wishbone Ash gave themselves more room this time to try out some lines that aren’t as “clean” and classic-sounding as we’re used to from them (The Power, Driving The Wedge). Luckily the album also has the excellent In Crisis, Happiness and Growing Up, where there’s nothing you could take away or add. In them, Powell’s knack for squeezing the maximum out of a vocal melody works beautifully, managing to create a dramatic climax of the air in absolutely every chorus of those songs.
“The Power Of Eternity” is a good Wishbone Ash album, one that every Wishbone Ash fan has to have in their collection. Among the new Wishbone Ash releases, meaning the first decade of the new millennium, it doesn’t ignite quite as convincingly as its predecessors “Clan Destiny” (2006) and “Bona Fide” (2002). Part of the blame may lie in the deliberately quick songwriting and too short a time window in which individual ideas could have developed and reached their musical peak and optimization before you commit them to “tape”.
Lineup
Andy Powell – vocals, guitar
Muddy Manninen – guitar, backing vocals
Bob Skeat – bass guitar, backing vocals
Joseph Crabtree – drums
Production
Andy Powell
Tracklist
01. The Power
02. Driving A Wedge
03. In Crisis
04. Dancing With The Shadows
05. Happiness
06. Northern Lights (instrumental)
07. Your Indulgence
08. Growing Up
09. Disappearing
10. Hope Springs Eternal
