Edensong: The Fruit Fallen Review

Edensong is the kind of band that won’t win over top twenty radio listeners. They may not even win over the more serious fans of rock. However, they will win over listeners who are willing to treat their music more than something that is just at face value. Edensong’s The Fruit Fallen is the kind of album that deserves and demands a handful of listens. In order to fully grasp what’s going on, one needs to dig beneath the many surfaces. There are buried layers which will go undetected to your average radio listener, but to music enthusiasts, there is quite a bit to appreciate.

Edensong is an eclectic prog band who mash together Medeival Folk, Metal, and Symphonic Prog to create a sound which would be like mashing together Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull, and Rush. The music, as you may have already been able to decipher, carries heavy progressive sentiments.

There are times when the songs fall into the many traps that progressive rock creates, such as the music taking itself a bit too seriously. Another issue which scarcely arises is the frantic switching of time signatures which can make the music sound a little fragmented and disconnected. Other than those two flaws, which are hardly heard throughout the tenure of the seventy-one minute album, this is a solid progressive release.

There is an abundance of dynamics and layers, which can only be appreciated with repeated listens. The Fruit Fallen is filled with seemingly opposite dynamics playing off of each other, from the slow and light acoustic sections to the loud dark metal riffs. It ends up tightly fitting together, and lays the foundation for this ominous work.

Progressive Rock is a tough genre to master. There are plenty of pitfalls a band can fall victim to, but if done correctly, the work can be a masterpiece. Edensong is close to piecing together the perfect formula. At times this album can sound a little too much like a stereotypical cliche prog album which has given the genre a bad name, but the majority of this album shows why the genre is one of the best.

Grade: B-