Shine On 2025
Cosmic contemporary fantasies from veterans of screen and stage that take off to fathom eternal wisdoms.
Luminous Voyage:
Flight
Nobody can accuse Craig Maher of not harboring ambitions when it comes to evocative sonics – after all, the American composer scored the “Brooklyn Lobster” film, starring Danny Aiello and Jane Curtin, about two decades earlier – but, with a single album to his name, “Propel” from 2009, this musician remains largely unknown as a performer. After a few years in the works, his progressive rock project EXO-X-XENO might change everything, however, as there’s a challenge the singing guitarist has set and then overcome by fleshing out his ensemble’s ranks with three members, past and current, of YES yet managing to not sound exactly like that influential collective. Here’s a matter of perspective at play, and the issue of “Luminous Voyage” in two versions – “Flight” and “Infinity” which share the content and differ in artwork – should stress Maher’s cinematic approach to arresting tunes and riveting arrangements. Without attempting anything groundbreaking, and without resorting to epic scale, Craig’s quartet simply explore the frontiers of spatial grandeur.
Luminous Voyage:
Infinity
This is why “The Event Horizon” – that floats into focus on Patrick Moraz‘s dramatic piano and mesmeric synthesizers before allowing the band leader’s lyrical six strings to soar and get anchored by Billy Sherwood’s pulsing bass and Jay Schellen’s thunderous drums – doesn’t require a lot of room to unfurl its many colors and shine. Still, the room it acquires will be filled with wondrous tunes which gel to create a vivid imagery where words aren’t needed – but there’s only one other instrumental piece on display, though: the short, if vibrant and enchanting, “At The Water’s Edge” which offers pastoral bliss to lure the audience towards bluesy undertones. The rest, the relentlessly rocking numbers like the baroque-tinged “Vitruvian Man” and the bouncy, airily streamlined “Reaching For Beyond” – that marries vigorous riffs and swirling figures to folk-informed strum and exquisite acoustic lace, all courtesy of Maher – weave Craig’s infectious, AOR-styled voice into their tight, stereo-spanning tapestries.
Swimming between channels, the celestial “Onward, Love” may seem anthemic, yet its spiritual sway is balanced with intimate sentimentality, the ballad’s start-stop flow aiming to make the listener’s heart skip a beat and then dance in unison with sweet vocal harmonies, and Maher and Moraz’s ever-shifting, albeit mutually complementing on melodic level, passages. But while “Into The Night” blends heavy rumble with heavenly hymnal singing and ruminative meandering of a fusion kind, the finely detailed “Live Life” brings the album to a close in an energetic, arena-measuring manner, with refrains staying in the spectator’s memory for a long time. Luminous, indeed.
****
