VESPERO - By The Waters Of Tomorrow
A short year after Surpassing All Kings, Russian psychedelic space rockers Vespero are already back with their third longplayer By The Waters Of Tomorrow. Considering this short time span, it’s hard to believe how they could have some up topping the incredible quality of their predecessor… but they did it! The nine song, all between four and nine minutes long, are brimming with ideas and yet are never losing themselves in self-indulgent vanity.
The album starts with the relatively short Daphne, running slightly over five minutes, giving the band opportunity to show themselves from their more rocking side. A hypnotically pounding bass is setting the groundwork, the drums are surprisingly busy, the mellotron adds a strong Seventies prog touch, and the copious amounts of blubbering synthesizers make sure that we never leave psychedelic territories. The guitar has a pleasantly active role too, so that we won’t forget that Vespero are first and foremost a rock band. This is followed by the longer Percious which starts out in a rather ambient mood before turning and twisting into prime grade fusion jazz rock that made me think of King Crimson. The main influences still seem to be Hawkwind, Gong and Amon Düül II, as can be testified throughout the album. There may be no vocals, but the balancing act between space, psychedelic, progressive and ambient rock is done with such dexterity that you’d think this is some long lost gem from way back when and not a brand new item by an obscure Russian band.
The panoply of instruments is of course also amazing: next to your regular rock instruments, you’ll hear melodica, oscillations, electronic manipulations, all kinds of keyboards, cello, bubbles, waves, violin and flute. This all makes for a very rich and most of all warm sound, thanks to the production skills of Ms Alisa Coral, but more importantly, Vespero never sound as if they are trying forcefully to recreate an ancient sound, but rather that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t sound any different.
The songwriting is incredible, and even though one may have wanted one of those epic twenty minute pieces, the end result proves Vespero right. Bands like the aforementioned influences still release today new and often also very good albums, but let’s face it: Vespero do it with more ease. By The Waters Of Tomorrow is an excellent album whose only drawback might be for the band to surpass it once again.