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Reviews

Resistor — The 5th Season
(Bandcamp no#, 2021, CD / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2022-03-02

The 5th Season Cover art

When I get a new release for review and discover that it’s by an artist I’ve never heard who’s been around for a while, I almost hope that it’s not very good. It’s not that I want the music to be bad, it’s just that if I like it, I’m going to want to explore the rest of their catalog, and that involves an investment of time… The 5th Season by Resistor is a good example. The CD showed up in my mail looking all nice in a gatefold mini-LP sleeve with appealing graphics. I looked up the band online and discovered that they’ve been around at least since 2008, when their first album came out, and this is their eighth album. They’ve got one called Live at ROSfest, so obviously there are a lot of people who knew about them, but I somehow missed out. Maybe it’s a West Coast thing. In any case, I learned right off the bat that Resistor knows what they’re doing. The 5th Season starts off with a 13-minute track called “Winter,” which begins with an electric march that leads into a vocal section featuring Steve Unruh’s tenor voice. The two electric guitar parts, from Unruh and Fran Turner, are arranged to complement each other nicely, and the additional violin (Unruh again) that shows up really builds a nice mood. The chord progression has some fun twists in it. About halfway through, they drop into a floating section of rubato tempo where the two guitars play off each other and increase the intensity with a variation of the original riff and a great violin solo. It’s all very well done, and completely justifies its length. The band makes it clear that part of their aesthetic involves recording the basic tracks of their music all together in the same room, which gives the music a very natural feel, and then adding other parts as needed. This process serves them well on these seven tracks. Barry Farrands (drums) and Rob Winslow (bass) provide solid backing to the arrangements. In addition to the guitar and violin already mentioned, Unruh plays flute on several tracks, and his contributions often lend a Celtic feel to the music, calling to mind Horslips or Fairport Convention. The downside to The 5th Season being so good is that now I have seven more albums on my need-to-check-out list, which is already long enough that one lifetime will never be enough!

Filed under: New releases, 2021 releases

Related artist(s): Resistor, Steve Unruh

More info
http://resistor222.bandcamp.com/album/the-5th-season

 

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