One Light Year: “An album between Neo-Prog and RPI.”

You can find the following 7 tracks on this album; “Ants in the Sand”, “15 Years”, “Spherax H2O”, “Travel Notes On Bretagne”, “Without Stallagmite”, “Pain” and “Lord Of Time”.

The albums opens with the track “Ants in the Sand”. The opening has a slight Marillion Fish Years tincture. But soon you can hear that the band has developed their own style. You can find wonderful melodies on this album. Love the tasteful keyboard parts. Halfway singer Irene Tamassia joins lead vocalist Guido Cavalleri. The later has a distinctive voice. I had to listen to the album a couple of times to get used to his voice and the fact that this Italian band uses English vocals.

“15 Years” has a fine and melodic keyboard opening. Next to the lovely vocal and synth melodies in this track which has also some jazzy bits, you can find also fine guitar parts and lovely keyboard or orchestrations in this track.

Then it is time for the longest track (12:29) of the album which is called “Spherax H2O”. The music of Marygold stays on the mellow side of the progressive rock spectrum. The music has a lot of melody and I love the tasteful keyboard sounds of Stefano Bigarelli who is playing for the compositions. He produces the most beautiful melodies. And when this is combined with tasteful flute parts the music can definitely be categorized as RPI (Rock Progressivo Italiano).

“Travel Notes on Bretagne” is one of my favorite tracks. It has a slow opening with a delicate sung vocal part. This is followed by nice guitar work and lovely synth melodies. A beautiful ballad like song with great melodies. In the last part the intensity is building up. Very nice song.

This is followed by “Without Stalagmite” which has a mysterious intro and develops into the next highlight with beautiful flute and guitar parts. Halfway the song becomes more up-tempo. The interaction between the electric guitar and the synth melodies is very beautiful.

The penultimate song is called “Pain”. With a lot of melodic guitar parts this is more a Neo Prog song with some early Marillion and Jadis influences.

The album comes to an end with “Lord of Time” a composition of almost 12 minutes. Another highlight with tasteful keyboard orchestrations and melodic guitar parts. In the first part of this song the organ plays an important role. In the second part you can enjoy lovely synth melodies before the song works towards a kind of climax with a electric guitar solo. For the second time I had to think of the work of Jadis guitarist Gary Chandler. A worthy ending of a fine album.