Steve Unruh delivers quite a different prog experience with his release Out of the Ashes - an album and a genre he refers to as Prog-Folk. While the music runs on an engine of accoustic guitars and violin what I hear is a high quality symphonic-progressive album where Unruh supplies all the instruments - real drums, violin as well as socially aware lyrics.
The opening track is a suite of 3 compositions from which the CD get's its name. This suite clocks-in at just over 40 mintues. The music on the overall suite makes contact with both the accoustic and electric elements of progressive music and I sometimes hear suggestions of Shawn Phillips in the compositions. The 3 components of this suite Miracle Mile, Battle/Aftermath, and Breaking Free cover the range from good to outstanding and from progressive folk to classic progressive/rock styles. Breaking Free is the stand out though the suite as a whole is excellent.
If there is a weakness I think it would be in the mixing/mastering or production phases. There are things that could have been done in the studio to expoit and emphasize the sonic elements of the compositions. For one thing, Unruh's voice would have benefited from occasional enhancement, better separation & isolation from the overall mix and volume. Unruh has a fine voice without the help, but these are symphonic progressive tracks and a little depth or echo here/overdubbing and layering there.... Improvements in these areas would have increased the range, spread and isolation in a number of passages in this album - as this crique is not limited to only those with vocals. This is already a very good album so I am only suggesting that these weaknesses simply hold the album back a bit from achieving it's maximum effect.
Multi-instrumentalists often get called to task for using synth drums. This is not the case on Out of the Ashes because real drums are in place. They are well played - and at times - as in Breaking Free, Unruh's drum work are quite good. There are other times when the drums seem, well... under-played. Perhaps the mix/master has responsibility for this feeling on my part.
Normally a staple in this style of progressive music, Out of the Ashes comes with little or no keyboards. The result is a refreshing take on this music. The acoustic guitar work is excellent in all respects (performance, composition, recording). The closest I find to this kind of work lie in various tracks on the the first 3 of Shawn Phillips - who I mentioned previously. Phillips is much more folkly overall and certainly uses his voice in more expansive ways. However the building on acoustic guitar and a number of the vocal stylings on the Out of the Ashes suite does suggest that artist to me.
Outside the 40 minute Out of the Ashes suite lies two additional tracks. They are not related to the suite and seem to have been added because there is more time to fill on the CD. The first, Slowly as the Lights Go Down is not terribly progressive but as a song it does grow on you. Vocally, Unruh brings to mind Joe Jackson in this track. The second track is a 6+minute Violin/Drumkit solo and I find much of it to be very enjoyable - in partular the first part which emphasizes the violin.
This is an excellent album and I highly recommend it. It has been receiving frequent play on my stereo and will certainly continue to do so well after this review is posted. Flaws and deficiences considered, I still think Unruh has put out a CD which is worthy for inclusion on my list of best of 2004 releases. It is not going to be the top CD - but a top ten placement at the end of the year would not surprise me. It would take some incredible releases to knock this one completely off of that list. You should visit the Unruh web site and sample the music.
