Lyrian - Nightingale Hall [Album]

Medieval Records

November 4, 2009, 08:48 PM

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My grandmother used to say of an ugly baby that only a mother could love it. "Nightingale Hall" by Lyrian is one heck of an ugly baby; it’s a 500-disk pressing and for a vanity project of such excruciating awfulness, that’s possibly 499 too many. However, having heard the disk in its entirety, for which dedication I deserve a medal, I believe I may have seen the passion and commitment that went to create it.

What’s good about it? The artwork, on the disk itself and on the sleeve notes, has a naïve charm. I liked the idea of a creeper joining the pages together, there being all sorts of links to the past and the future, to the nature of things and to life ongoing. Unfortunately I found the cover boring, which being the cover was something of a shame. However it did more accurately represent the recorded contents than the rest of the artwork.

As for the music itself, "Nightingale Hall" is made up of 8 tracks. The longest, 'Nightingales,' is a little over 17.5 minutes, and 15 minutes of that is, well, ghastly. The shortest track is just shy of 2 minutes. It’s the 'Prelude' and it’s the best track by far. Not just because of the length of the thing, although (and trust me, this is important) every second counts on this disk, and not in a good way. No, it’s the best because it’s genuinely presentable.

The rest have fleeting moments of musical brightness here and there but when all the songs are written by members of the 3-piece that is Lyrian, and the moroseness of their writing is as poor as their singing and as bleak as their production, then, frankly, one has to ask…Why? And here’s the nub of this review: it is impossible to fairly evaluate a recording where the passion and commitment of the artist is so very much greater than their ability. Progressive rock? Never.

This is a boring, repetitive, frankly awful album, which would have been a good deal improved if the second half had been omitted. I'd have preferred it if they hadn't bothered with the first half, either.

HEALTH WARNING: Unless you enjoy pseudo-medieval concept recordings of frighteningly poor quality DO NOT SEEK OUT THIS ALBUM!

NB The sleeve notes say this disk was recorded in Bedroom Studios. That says it all.

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