Rites At Dawn [CD]

I looked forward to this release with some anticipation. It's been awhile since WOBBLER's last release, the superb 'Hinterland', which was more of an EP than an album lengthwise. 'Rites At Dawn' thankfully gives us a slightly longer playing time at about 46 minutes.

WOBBLER remind me of ANGLAGARD, but without as much angst or venomous edge, or of LANDBERK but with less 'vemod' and melancholy. However, they combine elements of many other facets of prog rock too, including their very own hallmark of originality. They are one of the few current bands who for me can actually create valid music that is awash with a genuine 70s prog feel. In terms of validity this music is like real gold rather than the gold plating some other bands may offer. The band originate from Norway, it seems that the Scandinavian countries are continuing to offer outstanding talent in all areas of music, including progressive rock.

If you are a fan of 70's progressive rock and you have not heard WOBBLER before, I urge you to listen to this album, I will be astounded if you don't like it. It has more than lived up to my anticipation, in fact it has exceeded it in bucket loads. The musicianship, composition and production are superb. There is less of a medieval essence to the music than expected and there is more plagiarism than I would associate with previous WOBBLER releases, mostly similarities with parts of 'Fragile' by YES. Strange indeed as I haven't noticed that much (if any ?) YES influence in their previous releases !! However, rest assured, overall this is not a bad thing and there is also an original validity to everything.

The album offers 2 very short tracks and 5 longer tracks varying between five and twelve minutes in duration, they are as follows:

'Lucid' : a dreamy and short instrumental intro which sounds unlike its name !!

'La Bealtaine' : a rustic theme is joined by mellotron and then those YES like vocals enter the fray, think 'South Side of the Sky' or even 70's band DRUID on their debut album 'Toward the Sun' . However, it is only about 4 minutes into the track that any YES influence sounds through in the actual musical lines (shape shifters - indeed !!!) and in reality the ideas taken from YES largely adorn and embellish a very original composition.

'In Orbit': pastoral acoustic guitar and oboe take us toward a complex YES like theme that develops into a virtual YES theme, that sounds more like YES than YES !! Those vocals are there again and even that Chris Squire bass line. Five minutes in the themes also owe something to GENESIS circa 'Selling England' including at 6.09 an awesome keyboard run that Tony Banks would have been proud of . However, the whole twelve and half minutes of this epic song is also indelibly stamped with WOBBLER's own trademark sound.

'This Past Presence' ; a pastoral and dream like affair where the occasionally more aggressive passage, contrasts with flute and acoustic guitar and some gorgeous use of mellotron.

'A Faeries's Play': another gorgeous blast of original and 70's influenced prog, possibly the highlight of the album for me.

'The River': more aggressive than some of the previous tracks but still steeped in melody and atmospheric mystery and with some nice use of bassoon.

'Lucid Dreams': rounds off the album where we started, with a short dreamy and angelic instrumental outro..

I'd like to give this album five stars, essentially I feel it's that good and it deserves it, but due to the overly strong homage to YES (which I further state is no bad thing !!), I feel I can only offer 4.5 rounded down to 4. Still, please do listen to it if you can !!

Like others have said here - I wasn't entirely convinced at first. The YES comparisons are so striking that this may initally put some people off.
I, too, was also not convinced about the strength of the compositions at first and thought perhaps the melodies were not strong or memorable enough.
However - having now had the album for a couple of months I now cannot get enough of this album! I play it several times a day! Now, I have come to think the melodies are simply beautiful - it just took a little while for them to sink in with me.
Please - give this band a chance. If you are willing to listen with open ears and have a little patience you will be greatly rewarded.

I've given this album a number of listens, and own the other 2 wobbler CD's, both of which I really like, especially afterglow.

Rites at Dawn, whilst being very well played throughout, as I would have expected,is far too derivative of it's influences, particularly of both Yes and ELP, but without including any musical originality which say's 'Wobbler' (unhlike the previous 2 albums).

A key problem throughout is the lack of any discernable melody, both musically and particularly wiht the vocals. I do not like the new singer's voice - there is no passion behinhd the vocals, and - where's the tune??'. I may be in the minority, but I much prefer the previous vocalists voice,annd his (better in my opinion) ear for melody.

It's not that the songs are bad, they are just not memorable. If I went into each song individually, I would be saying the same thing each time i.e. well played, lacking melody, poorly, and blandly sung, and ripping Yes and ELP off, to the point of plagiarism, without the 'Wobbler' stamp.

I hope this is a blip, and that they come back with a more original stronger 4th album, with a different, better, more passionate singer who sounds like he means the words he sings.

3 stars is gererous, but that if because the music is played to a high standard.

Veruy disappointed...