Stealing The Fire - Hot Ice And Wondrous Strange Snow


Year of Release: 1999
Label: Burning Chrome
Catalog Number: BCD 10101
Format: CD
Total Time: 57:28:00

Stealing The Fire's Hot Ice And Wondrous Strange Snow is a rather eclectic release. Just when you think its instrumental with some Italian influences and some contemporary jazz influences ("Stormwing") it becomes abstract, a little Tangerine Dreamy. "Sirius Rising" is proggy-pop. Vocally a dash of The Gathering, a dash of 10,000 Maniacs -- yes, vocalist Saff Edye has that kind of voice. The track itself is a bit spacey. Ayreon comes to mind, though what I first thought was IQ with female vocals. "CumuloNimbus 101" is different again - experimental collage of sound effects, leading into what you at first might think is Pink Floyd's "Young Lust" before melting into folds and pulses of synths; not like TD, but, well, I thought of "Wow" by Supersister, actually. High energy and churning as one zips through white, puffy clouds at 100 mph. "Unknowing Angel" sounds mournful initially in a much slower pace than that which precedes it. I'm not overly thrilled with the vocal performance here. Keys are in the lead role, guitar providing accents with a repeating riff - after a few bars they switch places. "Spitfire Eros" is a bit quirky in contrast to rest of the album.

Not to knock Eyde as a vocalist, as she has a good voice (with a few bad moments here and there) but Stealing The Fire are more interesting in their instrumental guise than their vocal guise. On keyboards and drums it's Chris Bond, who also wrote the lyrics; Tim Lane on guitar, keys, bass and percussion. Chris Phillips plays the bass on three of the albums 7 tracks. It's a mostly interesting album, and pleasant enough. On a scale, it's at the high end of average, meaning I like it, but it hasn't commanded control of my CD player.


Tracklisting:
Stormwing (6:25) / Sirius Rising (8:31) / Hot Ice & Wondrous Strange Snow (1:27) / CumuloNimbus 101 (6:40) / Unknowing Angel (12:32) / The Moriarty Cube (6:39) / Spitfire Eros (16:34)

Musicians:
Chris Bond - keyboards, drums
Saff Edye - vocals
Tim Lane - guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion
Chris Phillips - bass (1, 2, 4)

Discography:
Hot Ice And Wondrous Strange Snow

Genre: Progressive Rock

Origin US

Added: July 18th 2001
Reviewer: Stephanie Sollow
Score:
Hits: 1617
Language: english

  

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