CD Review  

Lee Abraham
 "View From The Bridge"

Rating 93%

reviewed by Charlie O'

 Hampshire's multi-musician Lee Abraham is the new bass player in Galahad. View From The Bridge is his second CD and was released earlier this year. It is a 70 minute concept album which, at first, I took to be another take on Marillion's Brave concept. However, it turns out that the story behind the concept is of twins, separated at birth, who grow up into different lifestyles.

The first track is the gentle acoustic Goodbye with just Lee on guitar, which sets the scene for the rest of the piece. This is followed by the instrumental Overture No 1, with it's nice guitar work and jangly keyboards, both done by Lee, bass by Paul Tippett and a great solo by Gerry Hearn. The nine minute ballad Coming Home is next, a bit Coast-Proggy at the start, which is hardly surprising, and gets a touch Jadisy when Lee sings, and maybe even veers into IQ territory later. Good guitar solo from Barry Thompson here, and, as on most of the track, steady drumming by Gerald Mulligan.

The already-used-by-some-scouse-band titled She's Leaving Home is next, and with a nod of the head to the mop top pop stars, includes the lines "I close the door before he gets home, I'll leave a note I hope will say more". Shockingly, this is beautifully sung by Bournemouth based jazz singer Kirsty Voce, and is a interesting diversion!

From here, it's into Too Long In Your Spotlight, a mellow and melodic tune, with great backing vocals from Gary Blackman. Quite possible the highlight from the album and a great way to build into the epic Recurring Dream. This 22 minute masterpiece never keeps still, always shifting time and melody, as well as focus, and space. It features some nice flute playing from Sarah Bolter, who has played with Galahad (under an assumed name) and a widdly-widdly from Martin Orford, as well as Diane Abraham doing a newsreader and another solo from Hearn. Prog classic stuff here!

The miniature My Other Life, clocking in at a tinsy 2 minutes, nevertheless brings the story on both lyrically and musically, though it is keyboards only, before Overture No 2 brings it's instrumentalness along, merging into the dark The Last Sacrifice, like a cross between IQ's Dark Matter and Marillion's Brave. Karl Gloom provides some awesome guitars here - that boy is wasted in Threshold! There's nary a breath before Go Right Now comes in, a light poppy song, with backing vox again from Blackman and a good sax break from Sarah Bolter. This is sax as it should be in prog, not the way IQ did it. In my opinion. With all due respect.

The album closes in proper progressive concept style with Goodbye/Recurring Dream (Revisited) which does what it says on the tin, by drawing the strings together, tying them up in a knot, and bunging it all in an envelope, sticking on a stamp and posting it to the great prog concept in the sky.

So, what a progging surprise! This has been kicking around waiting for a review for a while, and I'm glad I finally dug it out. Ok, the production isn't as clean or as punchy as I would have liked, but apart from that it is a well constructed and executed slab of prog!

As already said, Lee plays most of the keyboards, bass and guitars, as well as doing a lot of the singing on this album! Is bass playing in Galahad enough for Lee? For Galahad, it's a bit like popping to the shops to get a new washer to fix a leaking tap, but coming back with a whole new bathroom suite.

Tracklist:
Goodbye (2:05)
Overture No 1 (5:03)
Coming Home (9:05)
She’s Leaving Home (3:38)
Too Long In Your Spotlight (7:24)
Recurring Dream (22:12)
My Other Life (2:06)
Overture No 2 (5:15)
The Last Sacrifice (5:19)
Go Right Now (5:47)
Goodbye/Recurring Dream (Revisited) (5:10)  

Check out Lee Abraham's blog here