„Lukas Tower Band : After Long Years (D,rec.1998**,2001-2003***,pub.2004)***
The style of the band has some “folkrock” flavored music, but it is played like progressive rock, an uncommon style choice in which there are little bands playing (I can think of only a few other bands like Legend, The Morrigan,..) and which might confuse some more strictly genre-chasing reviewers. But myself, I find this combination very pleasant to listen to. More often there are jazzy and just here and there a bit bluesy touches in the improvisations (flute, sax). Like folkrock, the songs are often based upon English and Scottish traditions and literature. The music has a kind of enjoyable relaxedness. The singing just here and there tends a bit to a kind of covering-rock-songs kind of singing, so less emotionally affected. It are the bonus tracks (from 7 years earlier) that really reveal how the band was a live band that needed to take some commissions in styles, which also shows the reasons for these elements which are luckily nearly still there, and show where the band came from. In Germany, rock bands do not have much choices for its own processes of its growth. Also this band seems to have started with covering other bands, and then trying to build up their own repertoire with it, finding an acceptable way for the public, to work as a live band. Compared to the earlier tracks (which are still good), the band has traveled a whole way, and managed to reach a different level of inspiration.
Audio : „Indian Beard“, „Ravens“, „Le Pocal d’Olives“, „Ring Of Dyfed“, „Wanderer“, „Thomas the Rhymer“
Homepage : http://www.lukastowerband.de/
Other reviews : http://www.lukastowerband.de/presse_prog.html
& http://www.dprp.net/reviews/200506.html#lukastower
& http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/jur/reviews/afterlongyears.html
German review : http://www.babyblaue-seiten.de/..“.