Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Progressive Rock never truly went away, it might have lost its bearing for a while, it might have been mugged and left battered and bruised, bereft of its credentials by the doubters, haters and the advent of Punk in all its glorious shades giving it perhaps a giant kicking when the beast had lumbered on long past its first revolution. Progressive Rock never went away, despite it all and since 2000 has really been in a rich vein of form that has seen it out last time wise past both its original incarnation and the short but glimmering second coming spearheaded by the likes of Marillion.

So many years have passed since what could be called the Progressive Renaissance of the dawn of the new century, so many new bands have ploughed their own trophy filled field and given the genre such an appetite for inspection, for tales interspersed with a guitar solo so rich that it could afford to bail out a bank; if they so wished to sully their hands in the process.

Amongst the groups to shine a torch upon the once regal path and current democratic state of Prog is The Tirith, a band that straddles both eras either side of the second coming and yet feel so fresh and exciting that the urge to fold away the day and take the vinyl out of its various sleeves for a sojourn through Middle Earth verges on the edge of the mind.

Tales From The Tower is an album that captures the modern and the flowering beginnings of The Tirith, an album that explains with delicate precision why the sound they created were of such beauty but placed within the very modern mode. Interpretation is good for the soul and Tales From The Tower is nourishment indeed, a flavoursome adventure ripened by time but not allowed to decay or become dust; it is an album that really allows Time to become a natural friend.

With supplemented lyrics, rearrangements and the feeling of being lost but guided by a higher unseen power, songs such as Gin Lil, Home From The Sea, the excellent Daughter From The Water and the absorbing, beautifully adept Pioneers of the Outer Arm all find themselves chomping at the bit to bookend the various periods in which Progressive Rock has been vital; polished, full of big tunes and the feeling that the space between us all is not so very timid after all.

A tremendous creation, of rememberance and of fulfilment, The Tirith in any guise and form are a force to be reckoned with.

Ian D. Hall