* * * ITALIAN NEO-PROG AT ITS BEST!!! * * *
“Polar Human Circle” is the fifth album by Raven Sad, a project born in 2005 on the initiative of multi-instrumentalist and main composer Samuele Santanna; since the previous “The Leaf and the Wing” (2021) the band’s line-up enjoys a solidity that perfectly reflect in the seven tracks of this work.
“Polar Human Circle” is another enthralling progressive journey through intense soundscapes with a strong evocative power, a concept whose lyrics, sung by Gabriele Marconcini’s expressive voice, lead the listener to question our species’ actual survival ability. Within an international-scope sonic texture which, thanks to a hard edge and obscure side – unprecedented in the band’s music style – blends 90s prog-metal (Queensrÿche) with more modern sounds (Riverside, Porcupine Tree, but also Marillion’s most recent works), Raven Sad combine songs here shorter and more immediate than in the past with an epic title track that, in almost 27 minutes, unfolds among psychedelia, orchestral sections and dissonant fugues.
Raven Sad also relied once again on Sonoria Studio (Prato, Italy) whose owner Andrea Benassai took care of the album’s orchestral arrangements too; on the iconographic side of things, the sidereal and tangible photographs by Gustav Willeit play an equally important role, constituting an essential visual element and a concrete scenery along the journey of “Polar Human Circle” towards the borders of civilisation.
Papersleeve CD edition.
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Tracklist:
1.Andenes 5:37
2.When the summer collapses into fall 4:28
3.Coda: A tiny passage to outer state 1:42
4.Point Nemo (Nautilus last voyage) 5:13
5.The obsidian mirror 5:21
6.The bringer of light 7:24
7.Polar human circle 26:43
I. Weltanschauung
II. The vanishing line
III. Dance on the frozen black lake
IV. Back to Andenes
V. A descent into the Maelström
VI. The medicine wheel