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| It Bites - The Tall Ships |
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Artist: It Bites
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Type: Audio CD [ View other products of this type ]
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The Tall Ships features twelve drivingly and at the same time transparently produced numbers, beginning with the deeply melodic ‘Oh My God’, an opener that lives up to the most demanding standards and radiates a positive atmosphere throughout. Then there are multi-layered numbers such as ‘Ghosts’, ‘Playground’, ‘Lights’ and ‘Memory Of Water’, which fascinates with its harmonies and rhythms and features a clearly audible organ part. The same applies to the rock number ‘The Wind That Shakes The Barley’, reminiscent of early Yes, with its edgy guitars, booming Hammond organ and the imposing vocals, which performs a successful digression through the whole history of the genre. Two equally impressive tracks are the title song, which proves the band’s talent for great anthems, and the opulent, experimental ‘This Is England’ with its more than 13 minutes playing time. To cut a long story short: all tracks impress with their compositional diversity and the exceptional skills of the musicians involved.
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Audio samples:
 01. Oh My God
02. Ghosts
03. Playground
04. Memory of Water
05. The Tall Ships
06. The Wind that Shakes the Barley
07. Great Disasters
08. Fahrenheit
09. For Safekeeping
10. Lights
11. This is England
Album reviews:
Back on the theme of strange coincidences, or happenings, that I mentioned recently in my Carl Verheynen Band review, here we have yet another one with this review of It Bites's The Tall Ships. This is the first time in over 18 months writing for SoT that I've ever reviewed three UK artists in a row: Big Big Train, Steve Thorne, and now this. And, as these things go, one might have expected one of the other two to run off with the winnings, given some of the hype surrounding them, but, in fact, it is The Tall Ships which is the pick of the bunch, by a long margin!
Released in the US in August 2009, The Tall Ships was actually released in the UK in October 08: it's an album that I bought at the time, but it was nevertheless a pleasant surprise to see a second copy arriving from SoT – it gives me an excuse to write about it!
It Bites are, in one sense, an "old" band, in that they produced three very successful albums in the second half of the 1980s, so it was a surprise to see them reappearing, with a different line-up, twenty years later. The original four-piece band was led by guitarist and vocalist Francis Dunnery: he, however, was not keen to join a reunion and so for this reincarnation the band are led by the only two original members, Bob Dalton (drums) and John Beck (keyboards, backing vocals). The greater loss is Dunnery's, as he is not to be associated with this excellent, enjoyable album of crossover prog (art-rock). The current line-up is completed by John Mitchell (also of Arena, Kino and Frost* on guitar and lead vocals) and Lee Pomeroy (also played with Rick Wakeman, on bass). All the songs are credited to the whole band.
It's an excellent line-up: from the very start of "Oh My God" you can hear that the vocal is superlative, strong, dynamic, rich in timbre and able to carry a melody across a broad spectrum of the scale. The instrumental playing is high calibre too, but with the focus on pleasing melody and rhythm, rather than painful virtuosity and improvisation.
Read full story at http://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=8783
...The first release of this incarnation is entitled The Tall Ships and consists of eleven tracks that even today retain bits of the classic It Bites sound, all-be-it enhanced with many modern touches. The album kicks off with “Oh My God” [5:48] a track that morphs through a couple of musical shifts in time and tempo. The general tone of this track will remind many of the band Kino, not surprising since both Mitchell and Beck were half of that band, so it’s to be expected that some of the sound will be carried over. However it’s track two “Ghosts” [4:45] that takes me back to the band’s eighties roots. The keyboard sounds and especially the lyrical syncopation all hearken back to the band’s early style. This is even more evident with the track “Great Disasters” [4:59] with its opening chant. The musical approach of It Bites then and now is clearly to write a good song and then embellish it musically, and they’re very good at that, especially since the core songs are very strong with some great melodies. Each track holds little sing-along treasures. I was particularly taken with “Memory of Water” [4:50]. The two longest songs are “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” [8:12] with its “Calling all Heroes” harmonies and the epic “This is England” [13:32] and both show the band taking various musical bits and pieces and seamlessly working them together into longer compositions. It Bites approach is not about complexity; rather it’s about laying down a solid song that is made interesting by the arrangements and musicianship. These songs are powerfully emotional, very moving and dramatically epic in scope...
Read full story at http://www.jerrylucky.com/reviews%20f-j_030.htm
It Bites is perhaps a well known name with the older generation of progrock fans since the band had its peak of success at the end of the 80s. In 1991 the band was disbanded. A reunion in 2003 caused renewed attention and interest in this British band who once had a domestic top 10 hit with the song ‘Calling All the Heroes’. Band leader Francis Dunnery however couldn’t restart the band since his current activities didn’t allow the management of a band. As singer It Bites then attracted John Mitchell (Frost, Arena), who’s also playing guitar. His voice perfectly fits the accessible rock of this band. The voice of Mitchell reminds a bit of Peter Gabriel. On The Tall Ships It Bites makes a very good impression with passionate catchy rock which includes progressive fusion influences. A bit bombastic and sometimes even sugar sweet like nothing has changed since the 80s, but quality wise it is quite convincing what It Bites do on this comeback album with songs such as ‘Oh My God’, ‘Ghosts’, ‘The Tall Ships’ and ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley’. A strong recording. It Bites can be seen live in 2009 as support for Saga during their European tour.
Read full story at http://www.gothtronic.com/?page=23&reviews=5458
...When I'm talking about Progressive Music you have to know that I'm not talking about basic Progressive Metal. Actually, It Bites plays in the category of The Flower Kings or even Marillion and all the other bands which use to play Progressive Rock with however strong Metal influences but which cannot be compared to Dream Theater. It doesn't mean that it's bad of course and the last It Bites is a proof that we can do good music without using only heavy riffs. The eleven songs of "The Tall Ships" are really deep with nice interesting structures. The guitar soli are technical but not boring and the melodies that we can find on each tracks are beautiful, tender and memorable. It Bites plays Progressive Rock and does it well! Sure on a side this is a bit Pop and the ghost of Genesis is not so far away but the band has a lot of good technical parts in their compositions and there are some good riffs which are not so soft anyway. As I said before, if you like bands like The Flower Kings "The Tall Ships" should be a good surprise for you...
Read full story at http://www.metalstorm.ee/pub/review.php?review_id=6078
...You might, however, find yourself playing the same tracks over and over again. Many of the songs are incredibly infectious. For example, one of the first tracks that the band pushed on the It Bites MySpace page was "Great Disasters" (which is still available to sample). I can truly say that I've never heard a track quite like it in the progressive rock world; the best way I can find to describe it is a mix between the Lion King and a modern rock song. The track starts with an extended vocalization that repeats throughout the track, and by my best estimation, it was influenced by traditional African music. Whatever it may be, it's catchy as hell, and it sets up one of the most memorable tracks on the album, and one of the biggest risks in recent memory with one of the biggest payoffs. Other standout tracks are The Tall Ships, which is a slower song with some lovely lyrics and a great progression throughout, as well as Fahrenheit, which has one of the catchiest choruses on the album...
Read full story at http://www.progressivemelodies.com/2009/01/it-bites-tall-ships-review.html
They're a mixture of pop and progressive, and probably in the eighties that wasn't the right time.
In this new album there's only John Beck and Bob Dalton of the original lineup, and the singer/guitarist, Francis Dunnery, is now replaced by the equally skilled John Mitchell.
I may be biased, but I really think this is one of the greatest album in the last few years, and they actually sound like the original It Bites: the style hasn't changed!
I had already enjoyed the Live album they released a few years ago, When The Lights Go Down, and I was already happy at that time, because It Bites were together again.
Read full story at http://longlivemusic.blogspot.com/2009/03/it-bites-are-back-tall-ships.html
Kino or It Bites? You don't have to choose, as you have here the best of both worlds. In fact, both have in common a strong sense of melody, some pop tricks and very good musicianship. Oh, and those harmony vocals! They are really great, and that's something which is not easy to find nowadays (in prog and in music in general). John Mitchell's voice is a little less brilliant than Franics Dunnery's (that is, less happy), but more introspective in a lot of moments. But, anyway, a lot of the songs have this good vibrations feeling that can make you feel better after listeninng to them. Yes, Great Disasters could be a catchy single, but there are also a lot of prog-rock arrangements in (usually) short songs, such as the great Oh My God, Ghosts, Memory of Water (one of the best It Bites tracks ever) or Farenheit. I'm not too sure if this is the 4th It Bites studio album or the 2nd Kino studio album (Kino is a very recommendable and sadly underrated band...). But it's VERY GOOD music, and if you like any of these bands (or the sweddish A.C.T., which have a really strong It Bites accent), then The Tall Ships will satisfy you completely. I've listened to the album 5 or 6 times now, and with every listen this records grows and grows...
Read full story at http://www.progarchives.com/review.asp?id=185588
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