Tuesday 21 February 2017

Holon - The Time Is Always Now (2016)


The debut album from this Norwegian band.

Holon is the Norwegian songwriter and guitarist Ronny Pedersen with invited guest musicians for this album. I am not sure if Holon is a band. It is more like a project.
Among those involved, we find Rhys Marsh and Lars Fredrik Froislie.
The lineup is guitars, Hammond organs, keyboards, bass, drums, male and female vocals.

Ronny Pedersen is said to be very inspired by the likes of Zappa and symphonic prog from the 1970s. So inspired that he has been working on this album since 2012.

It shows. The album is a tour de force through various genres from the 1970s. Zappa aside, most of these genres is very melodic. Fusion, eclectic prog, symphonic prog and a bit harder prog gets their time and space here. And yes, Zappa too get some time and space intertwined with the other musical expressions.

There are a couple of great moments here. Two Grain Of Sands is one of them. A song with hit potential. Hence, it is out as a single.

The rest of the album is much more inwards looking and not particular commercial and lightweight. This seventy minutes long album is no easy listening at all. It has various genres. Perhaps one too many genres.

But that also gives us a lot of great vocal harmonies, guitar harmonies and a lot of really clever melodies. The feel and ambience here is darkness and light. This is indeed a pastoral album with a great sound.

This album has been worked on for many years and it really feels like it. You can feel the tender loving care afforded to every details and every tone here. The result is something really special.

It is indeed a great album and one to really cherish. Maybe this is Ronny Pedersen's only album in his life. Maybe there will be more. But he should really look at this album with pride and very warm feelings. A great album indeed.

4 points


   

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