FOREST FIELD – Seasons (2019)
To be released tomorrow, “Seasons” is the new album by FOREST FIELD, the project of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Peter Cox. While his previous efforts were a bit confusing musically (hence not featured here) on “Seasons” the songs are stronger, rocking, and well recorded. With busy American Phil Vincent (Tragik, Legion, et al) on vocals, and skilled Vince O’Reagan (Pulse, Legion, Bob Catley) dropping some killer guitar solos, the album delivers an interesting mix of melodic hard rockers and lite proggy tunes.
Among the stronger numbers there’s the almost poppy AOR, catchy ‘Change The World’ plenty of keys, an ’80s atmosphere in the verses and smooth vocals, and the melodic hard rocker ‘The Lion’s Den’, a guitar driven tune with some stupendous O’Reagan solos.
Different, and good, ‘Rain In May’ is slow, with a synth background, acoustic guitars, adorned with cellos, and Vincent cleverly sweeten his vocals to fir the atmosphere.
Another winner is ‘A Silent Cry’, a solis melodic hard rocker with a slightly progressive touch in vein of Ten or Magnum, very well arranged.
This is a ‘season’ themed disc, and we find in ‘Autumn Sky’ a quite heavy rocker with some muscular riffs, and on the other had ‘Storm in November’, despite its title, it’s an atmospheric midtempo rocker but where the melody and harmonies abound.
On ‘Trading Places’ there’s a well elaborated guitar / keyboard interplay and some kind of epicness, and to add more variation to the album, ‘Circles’ is an instrumental with a hard rock foundation yet finding room to explore progressive passages.
Focused and strongly written, “Seasons” is easily Forest Field’s best album to date.
Varied, dynamic, ranging from edgy rockers to melodic midtempo tunes, adding a touch of progressive here and there, and with fine vocals by Vincent, this is pleasant listen all over.
Two thumbs up.
01 – Delta Hours
02 – Change the World
03 – Spring Is Coming
04 – Into the Lions Den
05 – Rain in May
06 – Eyewitness
07 – Circles
08 – A Silent Cry
09 – Autumn Sky
10 – Trading Places
11 – Storm in November
12 – On the Edge of Winter
Phil Vincent – vocals
Peter Cox – guitars, bass, keyboards, drums
Vince O’Regan – guitar solos (4, 10)
PRE ORDER:
forestfield.bandcamp.com/album/seasons
