Search - Thieves' Kitchen :: Shibboleth

A New Unique Style of Prog

Old Prog Lover | Indianapolis, IN | 11/20/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Could Thieves' Kitchen have developed a new genre of progressive music? Jazz/Prog? It certainly seems so.



TK has become almost as unique to progressive music as the early Return to Forever was to jazz. The Water Road combines elements of prog and jazz into a sound that is both familiar to prog lovers but yet refreshing, new and unique.



TK has really changed their sound since their first release "Head". That was pretty straight forward progressive music. Their second release "Argot" was again pretty straight forward prog but you began to hear some jazz stirrings in many of the cuts. Then on Shibboleth a wonderful thing happened! They replaced Simon Boys with Amy Darby on vocals. Not that Simon Boys was that bad but he had NO range at all. Everything was in one octave and he always left you just waiting for a high note or something, anything, to break the monotony of his voice. TK became a completely different group with the release of Shibboleth and The Water Road.



Amy Darby, has a wonderful voice, often soft and soothing in juxtaposition with some of the harder elements of TK's music. Female vocals are still quite uncommon in progressive music which adds another interesting element. Adding in even more elements of jazz and the Canterbury style of prog and you have a completely different sound from their initial releases. Amy's voice allowed TK to develop some softer elements to their compositions to really make use of her softer vocals. The result becomes lengthy compositions that are composed of different movements, both fast and slow, that keep the longer compositions extremely interesting and anything but monotonous. Very soft, shorter pieces break up the longer compositions on The Water Road. The overall project gives the listener a stunning array of musical styles that allow The Water Road to reveal new gems with every listen. Both Shibboleth and The Water Road become more endearing with every listen. They are both in the rare group of CDs that never seem to get stale, that are seemingly new every time you listen to them.

"