Crystal Palace - Scattered Shards - 2018



    

“... diverse and powerful ...”

intro

The German band present already their 8th album. The album is entitled “Scattered Shards” and has been released on the Progressive Promotion Records label. Following the info sheet “Scattered Shards is about new sounds, powerful now but elegiac and dreamy arrangements in the next moment ... every song tells a story. The band already played some songs of the new album in a live setting during their UK tour in 2017

line-up

Nils Conrad - electric and acoustic guitars; Frank Kohler - keyboards, backing vocals, sound programming; Yenz - e-bass, vocals, bass pedals; Tom Ronney  - drums, additional keyboards 

Guest musicians:
Tobias Walter - clarinet on Inside The Box
Guido Galler - additional voice on Collateral 
Ralf Jaschob - additional voice on The Logic Of Fear

review

You can find the following eight tracks on this album; “Inside The Box”, “Scattered Shards”, “Inside Your Dreams”, “The Logic Of Fear”, “Craving”, “Collateral”, “Simply Irresistible Cruel Intentions”, “Outside The Box”.

The album has a nice relaxed opening with a ballad like song entitled “Inside The Box”. The vocal parts are supported by a leading piano and tasteful keyboard orchestrations. I like the mysterious keyboard atmospheres in the later part of this song. Guest Tobias Walter plays a fine clarinet melody on this fine opener. This song flows seamlessly into the title track “Scattered Shards”. A song which slowly develops in a powerful and dynamic track with not only heavy guitars and full keyboard orchestrations but also delicate sung vocal parts accompanied by acoustic guitar and piano. The song is working towards a nice climax. All this combined with nice vocal melodies. The band slows down a little bit in the opening of “Inside You Dreams”, a song with beautiful vocal melodies. The strong point of these songs are the dynamic range and the diversity. “Inside Your Dreams is also developing into a powerful song. “The Logic Of Fear” is a powerful song with broad keyboard layers, freaking guitar solo’s and melodic vocal harmonies. With singer and bass player Yenz the band has a great vocalist. Sometimes his voice and way of singing reminds me of the vocalist of the Swedish band Galleon. “Craving” is also a powerful and diverse song. Love the broad keyboard layers and the jazzy guitar parts but the overall guitar sound is aggressive and heavy. This is also the case in the next song “Collateral”. Personally this are not my favorite parts of the album, but I am sure a lot of you will disagree and love these metal influences. Simply “Irresistible Cruel Intentions” is more my cup of tea. You can find lovely and melodic vocal melodies in this track. The guitar parts in this song are more melodic and somewhat jazzy. Keyboard player Frank Kohler does a wonderful job on this track but this counts for the whole album. Also drummer Tom Ronney has his moment of fame in this eight minutes track. “Inside The Box” was opening this album, so off course the song “Outside The Box” is closing this album. It is a worthy ending of the album. This song has all the ingredients that I like and in my opinion stands for “Scattered Shards”. Strong vocal parts, melodic vocal refrains, melodic guitar parts and lovely keyboard orchestrations. This song is maybe not as powerful as some of the other tracks but using the whole dynamic range is the strong point of this album.

conclusion

As reviewer who is not familiar with the back catalog of the German band Crystal Palace, I am positive surprised by the quality of this fine album. Love the dynamic range of the compositions. The music is diverse and powerful. You can find nice vocal harmonies and intriguing instrumental parts on this album. “Scattered Shards”, like fear, lifetime dreams, Intentions, loss and hope. Gathered in a box ... long hidden ... repressed ... never forgotten. What will you find in your box ... ?

author - date - rating - label

Douwe Fledderus - July 2018 -   - Progressive Promotion Records