95.
Album title: KRÁSNÁ HORA
Artist: Blank Manuskript
Nationality: Austrian
Sub-genre: Symphonic Prog
Formed in Salzburg in 2007, Blank Manuskript have a grandiose idea of themselves, describing their music thus:
Typical long songs ornamented with a high level of symphonic density and elaborate polyphonic structures as well as extended improvised sections lead their audience through an entire musical adventure. Their compositional approach seeks to combine all sorts of different styles and traditions needed to serve the initial concept of their works. Hence, the arrangements are carefully structured with complex rhythmical patterns and establish a sound-scape that can hardly be found in music nowadays. The lyrical elements are picturesque with a worked out mystic touch and though at a first glance arcane, they always address current social issues in an implicit way. As the music always follows the narrated concept, one might label it contemporary rock program music
(copied verbatim from Progarchives)
They seem to want to concentrate solely on concept albums, and have released four to date, with their first hitting the shelves a mere year after their formation, though there was a gap of five years between that and their second. The title of this album, apparently, refers to a village in the Czech Republic, where it was written, and means “beautiful mountain”. I'll look into the concept if I last the course; not much point in reading all about the plotline if I'm going to ditch the book after one chapter, I think you would agree?
In typical concept album style, we begin with the “Overture”, which features hard, pumping, snarling guitars and heavy percussion before thick organ marches sedately and majestically alongside the other instruments, slowly pulling us in. Suddenly the organ falls out and the guitars kick in hard and fast, then the organ comes back in, a much peppier, upbeat and frenetic sound this time, some pretty decent histrionics on the keys behind a cool bass line, and I assume this will all be instrumental? It's just short of seven minutes, slowing down at the halfway point to an almost Sabbathesque grind, the drums punching out about a beat every three seconds, very slow and measured. Some nice slow piano joining what could be cellos or violins perhaps, a fairly dramatic backdrop being created here. Not really any complaints so far. Can't remember what I thought when I heard this originally, but I can't believe this track put me off the album.
Oh, I was wrong about it being an instrumental. We have the vocals of Peter Baxrainer coming in now, with some nice vocal harmonies too from the other guys. It's pretty impressive; nice sax break from Jakob Aistleitner and into “Foetus” we go, with some distant mournful sounds, soft synth and some sort of strings, very low vocal coming in after the first minute of the six it runs for, perhaps the overall muted sound meant to signify how an unborn child might, theoretically, hear outside sounds? Or maybe it's the foetus itself trying to make itself heard. Either way, it's pretty effective. Sweet little piano motif going quietly there in the background, the bass creating a heartbeat (cliched but it works here) then the guitar growls in hard, punching through the tune, maybe to signify the moment of birth/labour? All guesses of course, but as the guitar gets louder and more chaotic, some serious shredding going on and the organ joining in till it all ends in the sound of a baby crying, I think we've got it.
Next up is the epic. I have no idea what “Achluphobia” is – oh right: research tells me it's fear of the dark. Well, this is a fifteen-minuter so expect a lot of changes and different expressions I guess. It starts very quiet and muted, guitar feedback and violins maybe, ambient sounds, a few hollow cymbal beats, no real music to speak of yet and we're two minutes in, but there's plenty of time of course. A sort of spooky synth line begins to slowly come through, reminds me of some of the work of Waits, then a softly strummed acoustic guitar, sound of a door opening I think, and we're in the fourth minute as the guitar more or less takes the piece, though very gently and gradually. Gives the impression (gives me the impression anyway) of someone walking slowly along, maybe hanging onto a wall as they go, feeling their way in the dark.
Guitar becomes more electric and a little more forceful, a lot of running up and down the fretboard as we reach the halfway point, and I would definitely say this is going to end up being an instrumental, but as on the other track I was proven wrong, and there is still over seven minutes to go, I won't take anything for granted. Still, a fifteen-minute instrumental is pushing it I feel. It's very evocative, very ambient and conjures up stunning images, and I was of course again wrong as here come the vocals. This is in the ninth minute, so it's maybe odd that it took so long but there's still plenty of the song left to go. Some fine guitar soloing now, taking us into the twelfth minute when the piano takes over, presumably to the end. Well, not quite: there's a vocal chorus, low and gentle, to take us there.
Not quite sure what to make of that. I would have said minimalist, but then there was the vocal part and the shredding, which stops me calling it ambient either. Interesting certainly, though it gave me the idea it was heading towards a big climax it never reached. It's followed by the much shorter “Pressure of Pride”, in fact the shortest on the album I think, at three and a half minutes. It sounds a little too jazzy for me, brass and flute in a sort of staccato dance, and I think I can say without fear of contradiction that this one is an instrumental. And I'm wrong again. Voices kind of shout in a chant against the music, which personally I feel doesn't work. “Shared Isolation”, while sort of an oxymoron, does dovetail in with our current lockdown situation, and although this was written before anyone knew what social distancing was or had heard of Covid anything, I can see how such a phrase could work. People looking out of their windows (metaphorically or literally) at other people looking out of theirs, unable to touch or really communicate.
It has again a very Waits/Beefheart thing going, with abrasive instruments and a sort of staccato beat before it settles down into a nice swirling keyboard passage with a metallish sort of groaning guitar and bells in the background, then the vocal comes in on the five-minute mark, and it's quite gentle and soothing. Gets a bit wild near the end though, and I think it's hard to get a handle on with so many changes, many of them abrupt and unexpected. Almost like it doesn't know what it wants to be. Could have been a good idea but I feel it somewhat missed the mark. Whether “Alone at the Institution” is meant to follow on from that or not I don't know, but I'm definitely getting the idea of too many ideas crammed, not into one album, but into every song. It's hard to work out what any one track is going to be like, and it's a little disorienting. I know the blurb says the band don't like to tie themselves down to one style or genre, but trying to be all things to all men fails here I believe.
The words improvisational and jamming certainly apply here, almost free-form to some extent, and here is where I believe Blank Manuskript snatch defeat from the possible jaws of victory. In trying to please everyone – including, or possibly only thinking of themselves – they're making this too inaccessible to your average music fan who knows what he or she likes or wants. Generally, proggers are known for being amenable to changes in time signatures, themes, styles and so on, but as a pretty diehard prog head this is too disjointed for even me. I get the feeling almost of too much fusion and not enough actual genre music, and it's too confusing. There are only two tracks left so for the sake of it I'll try to get through to the end, but that bailout button is looking mighty attractive right now.
Even though this is now six minutes into its nine-minute run, I've learned enough about this band not to assume it's an instrumental, and indeed once again those vocals come in with barely three minutes to go. Don't get it: you're either going to write an instrumental or a vocal song, but they seem to want to shoehorn everything in together on every track. At least they can't do this with the penultimate track, only three minutes long. “Silent Departure” does, I'm afraid, reflect my own desires and wishes at this point, and I wish it was the last track but it's not. It is, at least, a nice slow reflective ballad, without all the histrionics of pretty much most of the other tracks, though I'm sure we'll be back to that for the closer. Nice violin/cello work here, soft guitar, very relaxing. Enjoy it, because then we're into “The Last Journey”, where it all goes to hell again with a whole lot of different styles trying – and in my view, failing – to mesh. It's not the worst attempt to tie it all up at the end, but I kind of really don't care at this point.
Songs / Tracks Listing
1. Overture (6:49)
2. Foetus (6:10)
3. Achluphobia (15:35)
4. Pressure Of Pride (3:38)
5. Shared Isolation (9:55)
6. Alone At The Institution (9:21)
7. Silent Departure (3:37)
8. The Last Journey (8:34)
Total time 63:39
Line-up / Musicians
- Peter Baxrainer / acoustic, Classical & electric guitars, vocals
- Dominik Wallner / piano, electric piano, synthesizer, organ, clavinet, celesta, Mellotron, vocals
- Jakob Aistleitner / saxophone, guitar, bass, flute, glockenspiel, percussion, vocals
- Alfons Wohlmuth / bass, flute, bottles, vocals
- Jakob Sigl / drums, percussion, vocals
With:
- Antonia Sigl / viola
- Wolfgang Spannberger / samples
There's no question that there's good music on this, and I expect the concept, if explored, is probably very clever and deep, but the constant switching from one to the other to the other to the other and back drove me yellow bendy fruits and I just lost interest about halfway through. To be fair, there was a point where I thought, maybe I was wrong about this, but as it went on I realised that my initial assessment had been correct after all. Just not for me.
Rating: 6/10