Jolly Forty-Six Minutes, Twelve Seconds of Music
by Joe Mis
Staff Writer
Moody, mellow progressive rock with a touch of ambient elements – that seems to be a fit description of Forty-Six Minutes, Twelve Seconds of Music from New York based rockers Jolly. While the entire album is roughly 46:12 long, not all of it is really music – some of that time is taken up by a gimmick: experimental electronic noises and binaural tones.
The music is interesting, quite often moody and dark but always melodic. It seems to blur the boundaries between progressive rock, alternative rock and electronica. At times it is quite laid-back and mellow, and other times thick and crunchy. Some tracks are almost fully keyboard driven, while the drums or guitars carry others. The lineup: Anadale (guitar, vocals), Mike Rudin (bass), Joe Reilly (keyboards), and Louis Abramson (drums).
The CD opens with “Escape From DS-3,” a soft intro passage leads to some very heavy and chuggy guitars, fading into solid vocals and a hooky rhythm line. This one song is the epitome of Jolly’s musicality – typical progressive rock tempo changes, good vocals, ambient and atmospheric keyboards, driving guitars and catchy rhythms. “Renfaire” is a showpiece for Anadale’s powerful and smooth voice and the driving rhythm section of Rudin and Abramson. “Peril” and “Red Sky Locomotive” drop into a lower energy bluesy bass driven state and are very well executed.
“We Had An Agreement” is a gentle instrumental short that leads into “Downstream” – easily the best track on the disc. “Carousel Of Whale” pounds at you with a booming bass line and big bottom end, but the heavy distortion added to most of the vocals keep it from being a real killer track. “Solstice” is an almost modern jazz track, and “Inside The Womb” has excellent keyboard lines that seem to provide a strong ending to a very good album until it fades into a long and relatively unwelcome electronic noise conclusion.
The production and engineering is excellent – crisp and clear vocals, nicely balanced instruments. The band’s talent is obvious – each performer is very good at what he does, and they play off of each other’s strengths without allowing any single person or instrument to dominate the music.
The only negative aspect of the disc is their “binaural tone” gimmick. To quote the ProgRock press release: “Embedded throughout the album are various forms of brain wave stimulation known as Binaural Tones. These tones are scientifically proven to enrich feelings of happiness, focus, creativity, and relaxation through inaudible changes in audio frequencies.” Perhaps they have an effect only when one listens with headphones in a quite place or maybe they get lost in the ripping process when they get loaded into an iPod, but they tend to come across as occasional odd electronic noises that sometimes disrupt the smooth flow of the music.
All in all 46:12 is an interesting listen for any fan of progressive rock and a fine effort overall. The music is innovative, unique and always melodic. If a band can be said to be able paint a picture with sound, then Jolly is definitely holding a palette and brush. As 46:12 is Jolly’s debut, we can expect big things in the future from this New York based quartet.
Label: ProgRock Records
Web: http://www.myspace.com/jollyband
http://www.progrockrecords.com/artists/view.php?id=117.
Track Listing:
01. Escape From DS-3
02. Renfaire
03. Peril
04. Red Sky Locomotive
05. We Had An Agreement
06. Downstream
07. Carousel Of Whale
08. Solstice
09. Inside The Womb
HRH Rating: 9/10