Mark Lavallee - drums and percussion
Terra Serranum
An Older Land
Natural selection
Drainage
The Lower Depths (2CD)
Sampler 2
Sampler 3
Sampler 5
Sampler 6
Related Titles:
Transience - Sliding
Transience - Primordial
At last Lands End return with Natural Selection. The two years taken to write and record this album has certainly been worthwhile. Here is a very sophisticated offering of the refined Lands End sound - mellow progressive music at its best. There are no bland repetitive musical phrases or choruses here but themes that are continually developed and renewed. There are more musical ideas in a single track than many bands produce in a whole album.
From the outstanding "Love Through The Winter And Blood In The Spring" which will have Pink Floyd fans drooling through the semi-acoustic poignant love song "An Emptiness That's Never Filled" with its beautiful guitar solo, via classic Progressive Rock of “My Home” to the epic 30 minute title track "Natural Selection" with the typical extended instrumental themes that are the Lands End trademark - this is a release of 74 minutes of pure quality music.
The sparkling and varied percussion of Mark Lavallee in the strong compositional partnership with Fred Hunter's keyboards have created an album of magical progressive themes to which is added the guitar genius of Fransisco Neto and biting lyrics from Jeff McFarland whose vocals are a perfect counterpoint to the dynamic instrumental themes.