Band: Jolly
Release: The Audio Guide To Happiness (Part II) (Album)
Release Date: Out Now
When Hurricane Sandy hit New York last year, the storm destroyed Jolly drummer/producer Louis Abramson’s house, which functioned as the band’s studio. Since then the guys have been working hard at rebuilding and dealing with the aftermath as best they can. The completion of the final chapter of their epic double-album/self-help tape ‘The Audio Guide To Happiness’ marks a major milestone on their road to recovery.
Conceptually, the record has a lot in common with Dream Theater’s ‘Scenes From A Memory’, with its hypnotic voice-overs that directly address the listener. Musically though, the differences are clear – this is a cohesive work of progressive metal that elegantly blends genres which aren’t traditionally heard together, all the while sounding intelligent (but never indulgent).
‘Firewell’ is an explosive opener, and the heaviest track on the album. Jolly oscillate tastefully between meaty riffs, clean melodic choruses and meaty beatdowns. The resultant 6:43 track is engaging from start to finish. Tracks like ‘Dust Nation’ have a similarly metallic feel to them, but the most pleasing aspects of this record are to be found in Jolly’s more experimental numbers.
The driving riff in ‘You Against The World’ has a distinctly NWOBHM feel to it, so the shift to a reggae feel at 2:55 comes as a bit of a surprise (the biggest surprise being that the transition totally works – well played guys!). ‘Aqualand And The 7 Suns’ is initially a reflective number, driven by its lead acoustic guitar line until the full band kick in. It’s an absorbing listen on its own, but the arrival of a pounding electro synth at 3:04 rounds the song off in a very satisfying way.
Not every attempt at fusion on this album is a resounding success, however, and there are moments when Jolly’s attempts to create unusual musical combinations are less convincing. For example, ‘As Heard On Tape’ is a meandering, washy interlude track…with bagpipes.
Album closer ‘The Grand Utopia’ is probably the most well-worked song on the record and provides the audio guide with a perfect finale. Jolly integrate surreal voice-overs perfectly into the soundscape; arriving at 3:08, unseen voices morph naturally into an eerie melody doubling the keyboard line. As the song drives forwards and achieves its majestic conclusion a voice declares: “Congratulations! You are now happy.”
We are sure ‘The Audio Guide To Happiness (Part II)’ won’t affect everyone in exactly the same way, but after a moments reflection we realised we were very happy indeed.
7/10
Reviewer: Solomon Radley
