With The Lightmaker, French progressive rockers Nine Skies have a fine album of excellently performed and varied styles. A concept album which follows Rudy – who is living his 1,001st and final life tracing his existences through the view of several characters.
A range of vocalists are used to portray those characters – a tactic which works well as the concept flows through the songs.
Stylistically the music brings in a bit of everything being progressive, symphonic, heavy, lush, and sometimes folksy and never less than very well performed and produced overall.
An atmospheric two minute or so instrumental opens up in to a nice couple of songs – The Explorer and The Dreamer – which are both classy numbers of classic neo-prog say along Pengragon lines for want of a comparison.
Swells of keys laying down the foundation for quietish piano parts, atmospheric feels, and soulful, sensitive guitar parts as the pace broods and builds back and forth as the tempo changes. Tasty stuff.
Next up is The Chaotic. A huge crashing heavy, distorted riffage of bombast kicks it off before launching in to a remarkable slab of symphonic prog metal with the stuttering vocal style. The second half featuring a quite stupendous extended keyboard/syth solo before the guitar comes back in to add to it, the rhythm section thundering away then the guitar takes to the fore with a shreadtacular solo. Fantastic stuff. Have a listen:
The Lost is a slow burner which teases somewhat in to making the listener think it’s going to burst out a time or two and does to some extent with the heavier latter segment. Nicely done.
I can’t quite get on with The Haunted. Found it quite a dense listen with too many lyrics for the music. The spoken passages didn’t sit well and I got the impression that the song isn’t sure what it wants to be. Just my opinion of it of course…….
The Architect however is a glorious closer full of constant style and pace changes as it twists and turns over the course of it. Proper classic prog bringing in nice gentle parts, heavy parts, symphonic parts and some glorious guitar work. An interesting listen indeed.
Thanks to Anne-Claire Rallo, the band’s keyboardist, for making contact and putting me on to the album.
If you enjoy your prog of the highest order then do check out Nine Skies and The Lightmaker (and their other albums).
Various formats available from the Nine Skies Bandcamp page:
https://nineskies.bandcamp.com/album/the-lightmaker