Solstice Preview New Album With 'Life' Video

(RAM) UK prog rockers Solstice have shared a video for their track "Life." The song comes from their forthcoming album, "Clann", which will arrive on April 4th.

"As an album title, 'Clann' acknowledges the strong sense of family both within the band and among our supporters. As for the song 'Life', it's the recognition of those bonds as they grow and make whatever time we have left together the greatest gift of all" - Andy Glass

Recorded both in a variety of recording studios and by individual band members at home, Clann includes a first in the band's career with the track Plunk which features a brass section recorded at the beautiful Grand Chapel Studio in Toddington, Bedfordshire. Glass admits that "there might be a bit of a Big Big Train influence there somewhere!"

Clann manages to cover a great deal of musical ground in its nearly 40-minute running time. Firefly opens up proceedings and will be familiar to many already through its airing at numerous gigs and its inclusion on both the band's Live At The Stables and Return To Cropredy releases. Its pulse-pumping energy, hard-edged yet infectious grooves, whirling bursts of synth and violin and its glorious guitar solo lift the spirit and sweep us into Solstice's mesmerizing world. Elsewhere Life delivers smooth, soulful, modern pop with an elegant dance-friendly heart and Plunk is taut swaggering funk in 7/8 with brass stabs and a left-field, gritty guitar solo. Frippa is built on an urgent, bluesy Crimson-esque riff in 5 and spotlights organ, violin and even more incendiary guitar. Final track, the 14-minute Twin Peaks, in some ways harks back to what prog polymath and longtime Solstice fan Steven Wilson once described as the band's "spacey and spacious" early material - it's gentle, reflective and airy with pastoral, folky strains, yet builds into a soaring expression of rapturous celebration and spiritual freedom.

Lyrically, the album continues established Solstice themes of love, joy, peace, harmony and acceptance, yet Clann admits that not everything in the garden is always rosy. Although longing for some ultimate redemption, both Plunk and Frippa feature a level of reproach for unidentified liars and cheats with Plunk even exercising some wry schadenfreude at the downfall of the song's antagonist.

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