Issue 24-021 Album Reviews
"Better late than never" — this may have been the motto and the motivation for Marburg (Germany)-based Eleonore Pongratz. Born in 1953, she made her starting experience in prog/hard rock music between 1978 and 1982, when she was the keyboard player of the German band Softeis, which she released two albums with. Thereafter, she abandoned her music career and pursued other life plans. However, she couldn't seem to let go of music completely, so after her retirement she decided to continue her musical career and to form a band of like-minded people. That band project, however, turned out to be easier said than done. Having had no (or no satisfying) reactions to her requests, she opted for creating her own online project under the name of Aliènor in 2021. Her website gives an interesting and in-depth insight of the "making-of"-process of The Raven. Someone like me, who used to (and still sometimes does) play analogue keyboards but does not have the slightest clue of nowadays digital producing and composing possibilities, couldn't help but be amazed when going through the descriptions of the various stages of the project. Apparently, Eleonore started the entire process in a self-educated manner, something that I find even more astonishing and that has my full respect.
And the process proved to be lengthy and cumbersome. Once the framework was in place, Eleonore recruited musicians from all over the world via a freelance platform to have more vocals, guitars, bass, violin, and drums with the music. Altogether, 12 musicians from 11 countries, many of them assuming the vocals (did not find out who sings on which track, though), were involved. Mixing and mastering finally was done by a professional. Hence, it is fair to say that Aliènor is not a band, but the ambitious project of a single musician, maybe to fulfil a life-long dream. Eleonore wrote all the music, plays keyboards and is responsible for the lyrics. It's amazing what can be done to realise an album these days. I think I need to revise my idea that musicians often physically go into the studio together to record an album.
Given the aforesaid, one is inclined to come to the conclusion with respect to the music on The Raven that if an artist grew up with, played and was influenced by progressive rock from the seventies/eighties, then this must be reflected in her work. And indeed, some similarities with bands that were active and known during that period and thereafter notably in Germany can't be denied. I hear influences from Ramses, the rockier parts of Eloy, the bombast of Flaming Bess, the keyboards-drenched music by Choice, and Epidaurus, the melodic sound of Swiss bands such as Irrwisch, Deyss, and Clepsydra, the organ playing style of Dorothea Raukes from Streetmark - many (but not all) of them unfortunately having fallen into oblivion. But Aliènor's music doesn't just sound retro and like a stereotype of that time, no, it seems to have fallen out of time in the positive sense that it simply defies all current trends. It becomes evident that Eleonore Pongratz has realised the type of music that she wanted: hard rock sounding with symphonic prog elements, doses of art-rock, with keyboards which have found a good balance between both being in the foreground and putting themselves at the service of guitars and the rhythm section.
Common to almost all the songs is a spacy and electronic music sounding intro (the one from the title track The Raven even reminds me of Jean-Michel Jarre), before either keyboards or heavy riffing guitars take the lead. The vocal parts in my opinion suffer a bit from the fact that various singers feature on this album. That slightly comes at the expense of coherence and homogeneity, but certainly provides for variety and flexibility. The songs are arranged in a way to come across dense and compact, but still offer some room for soloing both from guitar (more often according to my impression) and keyboards. All in all, they are not unduly complex, but varied enough the keep the listeners' attention focussed.
The first two tracks are the strongest ones on this release to my ears. After its electronic music intro, The Raven offers melodic sounding organ accompanied by acoustic guitars, both dramatic, and melancholic female vocals, alternating punchy, and catchy synthesizer and guitar soloing, lots of variety and a sophisticated arrangement to highlight prog elements. Having listened to that track as a "teaser", it became clear that I wanted to review this album. The instrumental Circle Of Life thereafter scores with some catchy hooks, and especially its spacy, sad, and melodic sounding violin against a fierce rhythm section, a bit reminiscent of Eddie Jobson, and his band UK.
The songs that follow do their best to live up to the high expectations that have been fuelled by the two inaugurating tracks. Inescapable for instance is a melodic hard rock/AOR song, where the keyboards take a step back to let the guitar do its duties. Pray For Silence perfectly translates, by alternating hard rock and spacy sequences, how information, emotions, expectations, and obligations beating down on us make someone pray for silence which is felt soothing and relieving. Evil Raising, musically very much sounding like Eloy, lyrically deals with the rising of the Third Reich, and displays a gloomy, distressing atmosphere, which builds up and intensifies as the song progresses - in keeping with the topic.
Given Eleonore's personal background and the circumstances under which this album was realised, the outcome definitely is worthwhile to be given a closer attention. Recommended not only to prog rock lovers having an affinity with those "relics from the past" mentioned above, but to everyone looking for varied, original, accessible, easy-to-digest prog rock with harder edges, symphonic and spacy elements. Was The Raven a flash in the pan or are we likely to hear more from Aliènor because her appetite has been whetted to keep on going? At least mine has. Time will tell...