Mutual Isolation By Burnt Belief

 

Mutual Isolation

By

Burnt Belief

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

I have long been a fan of progressive rock, jazz and contemporary instrumental music, so this album is like being a kid in a candy shop for me, as today I get to explore all of those musical sojourns in one album and more, through the medium of Mutual Isolation by Burnt Belief.

So who is Burnt Belief? We have the magical cloud guitar of Jon Durant, on double bass Colin Edwin, the band also feature musicians supreme in drummer Vinny Sabatino, percussionist Andi Pupato, and Aleksei Saks a master of the trumpet from Estonia.

We have all had to endure Mutual Isolation at some point in the last two years, and it has brought some amazing results with it, here on this album the artists manifest a freedom to form unlikely to have been heard before, but one of the most listenable albums you will have allowed to grace your presence for a long, long while.

The opening piece Where it all Began (for TR) is a wonderful pastiche of free form Jazz meets prog rock, it’s one of those addictive arrangements that you will just keep listening to over and again, and each time you do so you will be amazed at the sublime work of Sabatino, and all the little nuances that you will constantly find within the composition as you go.

The rhythm on this next piece was wonderfully palpable and called Month of Moonlight. A smooth offering indeed, funky in a light hearted way, with the guitar of Durant offering a side to the arrangement that brought a great colour to the song, in the same way that the great Carlos Santana did back in the day.

Rosso Portofino as they say is a horse of a different colour completely, the trumpet of Saks partners a clever performance by Sabatino to manifest something that has to be listened to with serious intent, this moody offering highlights also the genius double bass of Edwin, whose performance with Saks sublime brass creates something so very fluent and almost sensual to bathe within.

Resistential signifies that we are now well into the core of the album, it also gifts us a sublime track that has a wealth of percussive brilliance within it too. Once more that delicious rhythm is there, as the band manifests something so fascinating and even mysterious within this crafted arrangement.

Whilst we step into the second half of the album, we do so by coming across a new offering entitled Perilous Terrain, Durant’s guitar and the light but very relevant percussion bring us a global vibe, which reverberates partially into a progressive rock structure, and then floats around in a dark realm of seriously in-depth melodies and structures, ones that build upon a mood of apprehension and tension. This is one of the most intriguing pieces off the release, a track that highlights the genius of one Jon Durant.

The hovering intensity within this next composition is amazing and simply idyllic, the track itself is called The Evolution of Disintegration, a gentle keyboard is further enhanced by one of the great performances on the album, as both Edwin and Durant created, what for me, was a magical moment of guitar and bass, and in doing so birthed one of the best tracks from this collection of superior arrangements; this is a song that could be easily tagged as legendary, it is that good.

Edwin’s opening bass line is as good as you will have heard, since the one that ushered in the single by Elvis Presley called Fever, his performance dominated this new offering called Precipitation. Joined by Durant’s sublime fluency, the band goes onto create a song that is dark with its onward movement, but one that has an underpinned addictiveness to its overall construction.

I did mention from the off that this album crosses a multitude of genres, add world music to that list now as we arrive at the penultimate piece off the album entitled Divine Rascal. This combination of rhythms, percussive genius and sublime bass, gift us something that holds a global ethic musically as well as retaining all that has been created thus far within its boundaries.

The last port of call for us on this musical voyage of plenty is entitled Expanse, and as you may guess from the title of the composition it is indeed the longest track off the album at nearly eleven and a half minutes long, and trust me on this, don’t skip, put your feet up and listen to this arrangement in its entirety, you will be more musically fulfilled because of it. Our final piece is a moment of long form brilliance, a hovering floating start with a keyboard setting the early narrative, then a wonderful combination of all that is good creative and artistic follows, in one of the classiest end of album tracks I have heard for absolutely years.

Mutual Isolation by Burnt Belief is indeed a ground breaking album; here is an opportunity to enrich yourself musically as the album is a land of inventive and masterfully performed offerings that are so very artistically created, ones that have such a depth to their constructions, thus it is an album that deserves to be given multiple listens.

Mutual Isolation by Burnt Belief is a next level album, it is more than just dancing with other genres, this is a release that manifests new ones, whilst creating a musical sanctuary of the soul for the ever eager listener.