The road to Avalon --- The Minstrel's Ghost (2012)
"The Minstrel's Ghost" is a sort of band/project name under which multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and singer Blake Carpenter works. This is his second album, and it has been twelve years (yeah) in the making. It's based on the Arthurian legend --- not an original theme I'll grant you but he does it well --- and the thing that strikes me most about this guy is how
gentle his voice is. This is not to say it's not strong, because it is, and he sings really impressively, but his singing is just so warm and so unforced and so, well,
nice, that it's a joy to hear.
He manages to sidestep some of the pitfalls inherent in an undertaking of this kind, and really every track is a gem, although to be totally fair sometimes his lyrics are a little simplistic --- "Through the mist/ There comes a man/ Takes the sword / In his hand" (
Excalibur) or "Over land and over sea/ Can you beiev in what you see/ This is where we want to be/ Living life in harmony/ Every beast and every tree/ Living in an odyssey..." (
Avalon, part 1 --- the songs themselves are great and the music is top-notch. If you're looking for blistering guitar solos or meandering keyboard passages that go on forever, look elsewhere. This is proper prog rock music.
Add to that the amazing art involved in the project and you have an album you really must check out. If I had to compare TMG to any other artiste or album, it would be Ken Kiernan and Ger McDonald's "Erinsaga", but you don't know what this is, so let me just say this is pretty special and definitely worth a listen. I've cobbled together what YTs I can below. Check out the art one for sure...