“Endless Future offers a nice balance between progressive and electronic while letting a large place to harmonious moments”
1 The Fourth Dimension 2:13
2 Endless Future 5:44
3 The Flow of Time 4:45
4 Utopia 18:47
5 Tube into Eternity 4:00
6 Warm Waterfalls 9:03
7 Age of Changes 6:27
8 The Wide End 11:36
(CD 62:33) (V.F.)
(Progressive EM)
With ENDLESS FUTURE, Art Of Infinity reaches its musical maturity undertaken on Dimension Universe. Always keeping a melodious touch, Thorsten Sudler-Mainz and Thorsten Rentsch experiments a darker and poetic approach in at both time a complex and sensual sound universe. The dramatics arrangements are surprising and the vocals of Eva Wolf, Alquimia and Ann Kareen Mainz add a cinematographic depth to an opus which sways between a floating progressive rock and an ambient EM stuffed of 1 001 voices of abyssal mermaids.
A heavy circular reverberation adorned by a beautiful solitary piano and of a celestial voice introduces the short The Fourth Dimension of which the tranquility is shaken by thunderous percussions and highly ethereal chants that a heavy guitar wraps of its languorous chords. As much sensual as cosmic, with Alquimia's vocals which is melting marvellously to the torrid saxophone of Stefan Höllering, the title-track crosses the heteroclite world of a young Vangelis with a strong Pink Floyd essence. That's beautiful piece of music. Suave and languidly serene, it's full of superb sounds blossoming. The Flow of Time is undoubtedly the most accessible track on this 3rd opus from AOI. The tempo is light and it beats on dramatic arrangements which are accompanied of a funeral piano and a solitary sax which flirt between the dark universe of Kate Bush and the Helvetic elegance of Enya. Utopia is the epic track here. The intro is spacey and offers multiple voices which whisper between the strings of a superb cello before that a semi pulsation structures a hypnotic rhythm. The movement progresses with strength beneath good percussions before landing in a desert dried up by the breaths of a wandering sax and by male voices which implore a poetic darkness. It's a long and slow ambient moment which wakes up at the sounds of good drum hits and a sax which melts itself into the harmonies of a splendid guitar before going astray on a more tribal rhythm. After the floating Tube into Eternity, Klaus Major Heuser's guitar charms us on Warm Waterfalls. This last one is beautiful, sensual and soft. It's dipped into a beautiful a great Mellotron coat and an ethereal ambience fed by nice and charming voices which sound as enchanting as the electric guitar. With Age of Changes and The Wide End we enter into the abstract and highly progressive universe of ENDLESS FUTURE. The ambient tones are heavy. They progress slowly on the noisy non-rhythm to merge finally into short melodious fragments. The voice of Alquimia is melting quite well to the nostalgic sax of The Wide End which is an elegiac melody before undergoing the lightning of a heavy, metallic and minimalist orchestration which concludes another Art Of Infinity's beautiful album.
From beautiful to soft while passing by the strangeness of some of its musical structures, ENDLESS FUTURE is an opus which is as well intriguing than melodious. Difficult to tame, especially with the last two titles, for those whose interest in EM is increasing, it abounds of pretty nice melodious moments of which the enchantment will increases on each new listening. This is the mark of a good album which offers on the other hand an approach that is more progressive than electronic.
Sylvain Lupari (December 21st, 2012) ***½**
Available at Art Of Infinity Music