Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
It is always a bonus in life when you come across an artist who is more than willing and able to embrace the Progressive genre with ease and the dedication necessary to make it work, make it sing as if a group of angels had formed together to create a band after hearing the luminaries of the day give pleasure to millions.
That bonus, that feeling of extra special cool and the upturned eyebrows of pleasant recognition, are to be found at times in the most gloriously unexpected areas of life and as by fortune, proving once more that the genre is still enjoying its 21st Century revival, Darrel Treece-Birch takes the art of the story further along the road and far away from the misbegotten days of Prog anarchy with the truly special and life affirming No More Time.
No More Time reaches in and gently guides the hands of the clock onwards, it doesn’t argue with Time, it doesn’t place the unreasonable demand on the genre or take it where it doesn’t want to be led, instead it merely hints in the first flourish of life and with subtle baited breath that something extra good, something beyond the stars, is waiting to be heard. It is what good Progressive Rock should do, it should educate, thrill and leave the listener beautifully exhausted and beyond the realm, even briefly, of the time they inhabit.
It is in the elucidation, the illumination of the delivery and the haunting spectral sound of the guitar, that No More Time revels in glory. Time may be a construct made from humanity’s most absurd relationship with the cosmos but it is also one that keeps us on track, to have no more minutes, the brief hours in which we are on top of the world, is to suggest that hope is gone. Hope arises because we have something great in our lives worth holding onto and Darrel Treece-Birch makes sure that his hand is close by, strings at the ready and lyrics to feel your heart miss a beat out of love.
In tracks such as Requiem Pro Caris, the absorbing combination that rides through the Nexus story, Legacy, Music of the Spheres and Earthbound, Mr. Treece-Birch doesn’t allow Time the luxury of running out, instead he adds to the point of having lived in the first place; to be immersed in quality art, to have breathed in the same air as notes of diamond rich clarity. No More Time, not a bit of it, Darrel Treece-Birch has given us more by simply adding this album to the Progressive classics.
Ian D. Hall