The Orne
The Conjuration by the Fire
Band: The Orne BUY NOW!
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This album was three years in the making. It was delayed by the record company due to lack of money, lawsuits over the band name and tracks were lost by the studio, but it was certainly worth the wait. The Orne is a side project of Kimi Kärki better known as Peter Vicar of doom masters Reverend Bizarre. The other two members of Reverend Bizarre also feature on this album; however they are not going to be a permanent fixture of the band line-up. Albert Witchfinder has plans to carry on with his own band, the puritan. The band in total is a seven piece featuring guitars, organs, sax, flute and more making music in the style of the darker prog bands of the 70s. The band describes themselves as, "dark progressive rock with a folk element".
The music is beautifully constructed from the band featuring many different instruments. The band plays acoustic guitar, drums, flute, saxophone, keyboards, and organ during the course of the album. The individual instruments adding layer after layer to the songs creating a wonderful overall sound. The music has a darkness surrounding it, while remaining a melancholy listen. The album compares well to the best of the 70s bands that have influenced it. Favourable comparisons to Black Widow and Genesis with Peter Gabriel and other bands like Wishbone Ash. Black Widows Clive Jones has given it his seal of approval on there website. While it is a good step away from the work done in Reverend Bizarre it is still an excellent album. The Black Sabbath influence of there work in Reverend Bizarre does rear its head from time to time during the album, but this is more about the band recreating the sound of other progressive bands of the 70s that had dark feelings about them. Fire unifies the album from the album title, then as a running theme through the songs. In Lighthouse a creature of fire is summoned. In Opening the watchtower the watchtower is opened by fire then on frontline dreams the troops are under fire from the weapons of war. The album breaks in with the track, In the vault. This features Patrick Walker of doom band Warning. He reads out an extract of S.L. MacGregor Mathers' translation of The Key of Solomon the King. This sets the scene perfectly for the H.P. Lovecraft inspired, In The vault. The following track, A Beginning is a black widow esque number about a semi-religious experience that Peter once had. The third track Anton is about Franz Anton Mesmer, the man responsible for the discovery of animal magnetism. Mesmer had also been a patron of the arts supposedly having given his support to a young Mozart. This would also be the bands original namesake song as prior to 2000 the band was known as Mesmer. The band changed it's name to Orne after a H.P. Lovecraft character. However due to a lawsuit the name has since been changed to The Orne. Island of Joy is a historically inspired song about Crete and Minoan culture. Frontline Dreams has been written about the chaos in the trenches of the First World War and catches the sorrow of the event. The troops go off to die in horrific ways. The song seems to examine the futility of war why exactly they went of to do this. Lighthouse finishes off the album. It's a dreamlike song that finishes off the album the way it started with Patrick Walker reading another extract as an outro to end the album. I'd recommend this album to any fans of 70s prog fans or Reverend Bizarre, while it is different from they do it is still excellent and I feel would still appeal to there fans. With the demise of Reverend Bizarre this band is one to carrying on enjoying Joshua Johnson http://www.myspace.com/children_of_the_sabbath
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