Sometimes you have to wonder at people's choices. Right now, I'm wondering why Sivert Hoyem begins his album with a track that's almost nine minutes long. There is a case for a long opener, if it's a slow-burning, big-building introduction that pitches expectation, etc., but this is really just a pub rocker with stadium pretensions.
'The Light That falls Among the Trees' is pub country, with slide guitar embellishments to the acoustic guitar and Casiotone percussion, then it's on for some Sire Straits influenced 80s AOR, complete with overwrought guitar solo with the title track.
It's when Hoyem turns toward murkier waters, as on the moody 'Shadows / High Meseta', a six-minute epic that has a driving bassline and stomping rhythm, that 'Moon Landing' takes a turn for the interesting, and he comes on like a haunted Michael Stipe. 'Empty House' is also touched by the hand of REM, only dusted with a psychedelic / Doors hue courtesy of a swirling Hammond organ and shimmering beat. With a sax break nabbed straight from the Psychedelic Furs, 'High Society' flexes different muscles again.
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The final track, 'Arcadian Wives' threatens to develop into something expansive and dramatic, and while the sound does burst into a swell of guitar and space-filling synthesisers in the final third, it fails to get out of second gear and makes for a rather disappointing anticlimax.
Back in the days of vinyl, it would have been a case of this being an album of two distinct halves, with side 2 being the better of the two by far. Side 1 would be the commercial, singles-orientated side, with side 2 representing the real album work. As such, it has its moments, but is rather uneven and slightly unfulfilling as a whole.
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