Ginger Trees - "Along with the Tide" (Transubstans Records 2011, TRANS 077)
From Aural Innovations #42 (May 2011)
Ginger Trees is a pretty new melodic rock band from Sweden. This is the bands 2nd record, the first on Transubstans. The promo sheet calls them progressive rock but there are rarely any keyboard or guitar solos at all or very complex interactions with the musicians. It is a melodic rock band that writes songs in a classic 70s fashion, except they don’t make space for the musicians to play solos, etc. It is about the creation of a great song build around strong vocals. Ghost of Another Age sounds a bit like Uriah Heep but the organ is pushed back in the sound, with the vocals being the major focus point for all the songs. Poseidon is next and the longest track at 7 mins on the CD. It starts slowly and beautifully and develops into a dynamic hard rocking track. Great song. Shadow of the Mountain is an acoustic guitar track with some interesting lyrics. New Day is a slow, melodic track that will probably be the one they try to get on the radio. Breathe is another acoustic guitar track but also some electric guitar. The Swirl brings back the rock after 3 mellow tracks in a row. Kurukshetra is a symphonic like track with great dynamics. The band writes a lot of good, strong songs and for sure is influenced by Uriah Heep on some of the tracks. The main focus of this band’s sound is the very strong voice of the lead vocalist. A good set of well crafted songs. If you like the bands that Prog Rock records release, check out this band.
For more info, visit: http://www.gingertrees.se and http://www.myspace.com/gingertrees
Visit the Transubstans web site at: http://www.transubstans.com
Reviewed by Scott Heller