Back when I was still relatively new to the world of hidden, non-mainstream metal I began to come across a strange series of bands whose music in itself, in its sound, was most certainly not metal and yet its spirit and soul happily acknowledged a deep and strong connection. I'm thinking about the fiercely intellectual Elend with the tempestuous Verdi meets Bathory descent to Hell of their first three albums, Arcana with their dark medieval sound of 'New Dark Age Of Reason' and 'Cantar De Procella', The 3rd And The Mortal and their gorgeous, delicate and introspective piece 'Painting On Glass'. The gorgeously dark Amber Asylum, too.
Perhaps I have been looking in the wrong places but these types of bands seems to be more thin on the ground these days, so I was intrigued by the Swiss Nucleus Torn as despite ‘Andromeda Waiting’ being their third full length were a new name to me, and being on Prophecy is usually a good sign of something interesting at the very least.
Travellers then is a collection of 12 previously released, hard to come by splits and EP tracks, or an 'odds 'n' sods' collection to some of us uncouth ones. It also is strikingly far more cohesive than I had expected: The first 5 being classically influenced, delicate acoustic guitar tracks from the Krähenkönigin EP written when the band was only writer and multi instrumentalist Fredy Schnyder, which are gentle and quite engaging instrumental numbers. A nice start.
The quality does vary from then on as when they expanded their line-up and began to find their way as a band, as you would expect from older songs but they flirt with light folk and the kind of classical acoustic sounds that Opeth slide through albums with ease.
The first real concern is with the vocals; sung in a very clear, clean and unadorned style that really leaves the vocalist Patrick Schaad nowhere to hide and something that Dead Can Dance's Brendan Perry, for example, does with real emotional verve. Fine as Schaad's voice is, here and there there are fledgling falterings perhaps explained by the apparently 'disastrous' sessions that recorded them.
The main problem is though that the songs themselves, finely played as they are, do very little. Structured on guitar, piano, light drums and vocals, they do feel like people still finding their way and the pushing in of some discordant jazz sensibilities simply sounds a little too forced, too much as though they were needing to show all their virtuosity in one go.
An intriguing retrospective but apart from the opening EP it fails to do much other than highlight that they are a talented group of musicians: quiet, delicate, classical music with the slight tint of folk or medieval music for the most part.
On the whole though this was a bit of a surprise from a band for whom I had heard phrases like Neo-folk, folk metal and Avante-Garde tossed about.
Andromeda Waiting on the other hand is their third album, a companion piece with Nihil (2006) and Knell (2008). It most certainly is a coherent piece but if you are looking for any trace of the metal that apparently could be found on earlier albums I would look away now. Andromeda Waiting is a placid and quiet piece of six movements that take you on a slow and easy journey on that classical river with undercurrents of medieval music, folk, jazz, prog....
There is an expansion in the instruments here; a delightful flute sound, some mournful cello and violin that hint at the touch of mid-period Amber Asylum before drifting back under the waters. The voice of Schaad is nicely improved; none of those awkward, almost flat trail endings to the clearly phrased lines, and it is a nice companion to that of female vocalist Maria D'Alessandro's lightly accented vocals. Excellent, really.
When the medieval sounds predominate and the movements drift into the longer instrumental passages there is a nice build of atmosphere, a slow and light rise like someone opening their eyes onto a sylvan scene from high on a hill. It is all beautifully picked out by the unfussy production; sharp and bright and every instrument finding its place and every word clear.
They have a simple touch in these moments and this is meant as a compliment; they don't dive into needlessly complex arrangements in these passages and as a result they work well and breathe a little summer light onto the world. The prepare you to move onwards or simply to fall back into its arms and relax.
The problems rear their head when the music turns away from this more archaic form. The closer they draw to the neoclassical, the less engaging their music becomes for me. It has a tendency to drift, to tread water in a place that has no distinct soundscape or journey. At times it dips a toe into the jazz and at other times you suddenly realise that whilst they are playing what they probably consider to be more prog musical flourishes, I find myself hearing music more akin to the meandering of perfectly played but ultimately static jazz-rock. A similar issue niggles me with those beautiful vocals and the clear words; they entice you in, draw you close but the more I listen the less I grasp.
It's as though too often I find myself in the middle of this swirl of musicianship and music and words but suddenly realise none of them are taking me anywhere. They circle and speak and sing and it's all with the voices of the seraphim and I chase them but it's like catching smoke; as soon as I think I'm following it, the sense of purpose vanishes and I realises it was just another circle and I'm back in the same place, nothing gained.
In the end I feel a little sad and a bit of a failure, too: when you are faced with a band with as much instrumental talent as is assembled under the Nucleus Torn banner and when they embark on a three album project that has the ambition and reach that they have attempted here if it fails to move you and fails to reach you it can sometimes feel as though it is your fault. But for all the talent, Andromeda Waiting, for me, has resulted in the kind of jazz rock hybrid that left me cold as a teenager and even in my dotage fails to warm me. There is no storm, no calm, no motion; simply little eddies of delicate emotion and atmosphere too often lost in the stronger current of virtuosity looking inwards and not at the horizon.
Prog fans may well find much more here for them, but for me it left me blinking at the talent and dejected at my failure to find much to engage with.
http://www.myspace.com/nucleoustornband
http://www.nucleustorn.ch/
