Tuesday, April 21, 2015

DRIFTING SUN: Trip the Life Fantastic (2015)

      Drifting Sun were formed in the early '90's after the French musicians Pat Sanders (keyboards) and Manu Sibona (bass), who left France and moved to England in order to start a band and follow their dream.       
There, they met with the American singer Rafe Pomeroy, and the new band started to take its shape. After a couple more members additions, Drifting Sun released their first eponymous album in 1996. Two years later they released the very good 'On the Rebound', and then disappeared.
 Now, almost 17 yeas later, they re-appeared again, with a brand new album which is a true jewel!
 From the old members only Pat Sanders is remaining, who found new members and decided to start all over again.This new line up sounds so fresh, and it includes some very good musicians.
 (I had the pleasure of having Pat Sanders and Dan Storey (guitars & bass) on my radio show Prog & Roll as guests on the chatbox two days ago, and we spend two hours chatting as we were listening to some songs from their new album. Both were very friendly and cool guys, but above all they are very good musicians, and that's what matter the most).
 Now, let's take a closer look on the album, shall we?
 'Trip the Life Fantastic' includes 10 songs + 1 demo, and has a total running time of almost an hour.
The album opens with the title song, which is one of the best moments of the album. It's a typical Neo - Prog song, with the keyboards having the leading role before the 3rd minute on which guitar takes over.  'Trip the Life Fantastic' is followed by the (2 -minute long) beautiful and melodic instrumental 'Peach Blossoms'
 Next comes 'The Wizard' which is another typical Neo - Prog song, with melodic and mellow passages and very good guitar riffs.
 Another small instrumental piece comes next, the melodic and mellow 'Sunsets' with keyboards and acoustic guitar.
 (I must say that I really enjoyed the idea of putting small instrumental pieces among the songs, because they seem to "bind" the songs together).
  The album continues with 'Lady Night' another beautiful composition, which includes some excellent guitar work. I'm not going to continue writing for each one of the songs, but I would like to say which are the best ones here in my opinion:
 Trip the Life Fantastic, The Wizard, Tormented, and Last Supper. Especially 'Last Supper' is the "progiest" track of the whole album.
 But the most important thing is that 'Trip the Life Fantastic' is one of those albums which you listen from the start 'till the end, without having to skip any of the songs. Surely there are stronger and weaker moments, but all the songs are of high synthetic standrads.
 I strongly recommend this album to all those who are fans not only of Progressive Rock or Neo - Prog, but Rock in general. It is a really wonderful album!
 You can find it for downloading in various online shops, such as amazon for example.
                As for my rating, this would be 3.5 out of 5.00 stars




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