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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Nate Wooley Seven Storey Mountain VI Review by Gary Hill I suppose you could say that this is a single since there is just one piece of music on the disc. At over 45-minutes of music, that song is the very definition of epic. It's also longer than quite a few albums. While it doesn't tend to change quickly, this is a dynamic number. There are instrumental based sections, vocal ones and more. It lands on the mellower end of the spectrum a lot of the time, but gets quite noisy and intense at points. This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) form in Music Street Journal: 2020 Volume 6. More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2020.

Track by Track Review

Seven Storey Mountain VI Starting ambient, chorale hummed vocals bring this into being. It grows very slowly, and gradually painting some powerful melodic pictures. The piece eventually turns more instrumental and the voices drop away, but is still slow moving and sedate. As it approaches the nine-minute mark it has shifted toward trippy psychedelic textures and oddities. The number gets into some freeform zones with a movement that has both space music and psychedelic elements. Things get noisier and much more into trippy space zones. There is a spoken voice in the mix, but so deep down that it's hard to hear clearly. By around the 24-minute mark it has become noisy and very experimental in nature. Noisy chaos eventually ensues as this drives forward. This starts to resemble some kind of crazed machine music further down the road. Organ takes command after the 35-minute mark. Eventually sung chorale vocals with piano in the backdrop join to sing lines that include those on the cover. Acapella vocals take control at the end of the piece.

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