It has been five years since the last Southern Empire album and is the first to see a change in line-up as singer Danny Lopresto has departed to be replaced by Shaun Holton. The rest of the line-up is still Cam Blokland (electric and acoustic guitars, lead and backing vocals), Jez Martin (fretted and fretless bass), Brody Green (drums, hand percussion, and ridiculously high backing vocals (it says here)), and of course Sean Timms (keyboards, programming, lap steel guitar, backing vocals). I don’t know why Lopresto left the band, but apart from two tracks which were solely written by Cam all the songs are credited to the group when Lopresto was still there, and he also provides some of the backing vocals and guitar.
It has always been incredibly difficult for any bands to get traction in this part of the world, due not to musical quality but rather the difficulty in gathering enough people to play in front of, and there being very little in the sense of a progressive scene which there is in Europe and America. I am still convinced that if Aragon had decamped to London as opposed to staying in Melbourne back in the Nineties then they would now be far more widely known, as they should be widely known by all progheads and I do wonder if that has been the same issue with Southern Empire as this album is an absolute delight from beginning to end and I am somewhat surprised not to see more reviews saying just that.
All the songs are nicely constructed with loads of depth and changes in style, and new singer Holton is a real find as he is able to hit the notes and hold them while also providing plenty of emotion. With multiple singers in the band it is no surprise there are lots of harmonies, and there are times when the prog is heavily tinged by AOR, and others where is some nice rocking guitar, and I can certainly see why this was grabbed by the Crossover team on PA as that is where I would have put them as well. There are times when we get some pop elements, as the band mix it up, and the feeling is that this is something which is highly commercial and has been somewhat sanitised in the studio but would be much heavier when played live. It is not a difficult album to listen to, and may be just too commercial and middle of the road for some, but there is nice complexity here and there which takes the edge off the sugar and the result is something I enjoyed immensely.
