Solar Project’s latest album so far, Chromagnitude, can very well be one of the very solid projects the band has released in twenty years. In the meantime, any prog fan can acquire and even like the album, but chances are it will stop sounding so rich and interesting after some time. It has anyway no higher place than on the „good prog” shelves, but the fact that it can slip heavily, „progressively”, isn’t wonderful news. This is quite the mixed feeling (subjective-objective) I have after one year, and that’s a bad sign for future listens too. There’s plenty of music in this world that’s completely un-everlasting without meaning it’s not good music, but Chromagnitude seems to be, sadly, on the opposite side, impressing you well enough at first, but eventually turning very plat. My early notes on Solar Project’s album were „There are funny, easy or wasted feelings put in this release, but not enough to kill the joy of listening to it. The vocals aren’t fantastic, the concept of the titles or that presumably inside the vocals/music seem even weaker, but there’s a load of (prog) rock, pictured in a complex, fiery or anyway deep manner. With seven pieces of different chromatics (yet not that varied music), Solar Project’s latest is good.” Now, however, I feel more underwhelmed than any other time before.

Sure, the middle part of that old note is still an “okay” characterization of how Chromagnitude sounds, but “the joy of listening it” is gone for good. A slice from the “enjoyable” quality dies out as well once a lot of “flaws” inside the pieces sting you during the listening process. One thing that’s strange is that this latest record makes me wanna try some of the band’s previous music, to see if the vocals were just a bad, compromising decision over here or overall. With just the lead female vocalist being changed, the unity of the group calls heavily upon the question: is Chromagnitude a concept-egg made out of brand new ideas, which should be therefore judged solely, or is it a step in the mud scaled to Solar Project’s entire career?

Getting down to the analysis, a general scan is already enough to prove what was mentioned above: the “minuses” are too many and show up too often, hurting the listener’s “feelings”, while the “pluses” are outnumbered and don’t keep Chromagnitude on an honorable spot. Starting positively, bracing for later: the album is a heavy work, showing some intelligent moments of production and composition and an even bigger mood for crossed-over nuances. In other words, as speculated way earlier, Chromagnitude shouldn’t be considered a weak and insignificant project right from its blueprints. The errors appear “progressively”. Right from the start, the brawny way of making and playing rock means the passion is on an upsetting inferior level. I simply can’t feel the quintet being moved by its own creation (and during its own performance), their interpretation is moreover “calculated”. Chromagnitude, a heavy “stone” as it is, lacks however the ingredient of a perfectly modeled creation – it’s not about “polishing”, it’s about how interesting the music can sound. The concept isn’t far from paying the price, despite the “journey into a world of colors and rock”. Regarding the style, it’s safe to say the album rolls in many directions, we can hear psychedelic-by-analogy (the analogy being, yes, Pink Floyd, or, when the song is lighter, David Gilmour), “crossover” (aka the mainstream added ingredient to prog), alternative rock/prog (I’m offering Porcupine Tree as a bit of example, but it’s a superficial one) and metal (or, at least, the risky combo of heavy rock and metal). The vocals add a bit of “neo prog” flavor, the relief being that nothing falls on the “retro” side – except, instrumentally speaking, the organ comçi-comça melodies. Chromagnitude is in fact a modern work; but this closes in on the “originality” factor, which is low on the list of ingredients.

Taking the walkabout, we can say from the beginning that most of the pieces try a mixture of the abovementioned styles – or just loop the melodies or the flow of ideas – without that much care towards suturing tightly the cuts. Gray opens the show, its length being decent; it’s the one piece that gives a distinct Floyd feeling, its richly guitar and trance-like intro doing such an audio-trick; not so lucky is the beat-builded vocal segment, climaxing in a dirty way, but falling back afterwards, by chance, to a sax final part, this being one of the good and beautiful moments on the album. Green lasts 15 minutes and punishes the listeners with a mix of “flaws” and just a solid rock improvisation in the middle part: lazy vocals, signs of metal bits, a bit unstable first part, and only afterwards a healthy prog improv, including the very-likely-to-be-acclaimed organ. Red’s dynamic is nice, but also directs things into alternative prog, the vocals regressing to neo or pop. The middle-part vocal dialogue is simply NASTY. Black is the one piece Chromagnitude worths its penny for: a moderate Camel-like intro, preparing a kick-off into feisty, positively charged and carefully mixed nerves of psych, organ prog, heavy (bass/guitar) rock and other stuff. Blue is Gilmour-ish, the sax is back with some nice effects, the vocals return to some unusual melodies and the slow-pace indulges the pop feeling. Yellow hasn’t got anything special, keeping the keys a chord higher so to create a seemingly psych trance for another roll of lyrics with a fuzzy tone. White is a piece in which you can feel the concept, some rhythms and motives are orderly repeated and the final choice of vocals is “neo”-ish; alas, with a bit of tension and a lot of fusion, the piece chills down to nothing.

In the end, I must say the review seems just too filled with pessimistic notes as to allow a 3-stars final rate, even if the work has its bit of interestingness, some instrumental rockin’ pays off and prog standards exist throughout – mostly through improvisational impulses. The word for Chromagnitude is “okay, but terribly non-essential”. Fans will surely dig it, but overall it doesn’t remain remarkable in the modern chapters of prog rock.

by Ricochet


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