Emkog Rec. 
Deluge Grander : The Form Of The Good (US,2009)***°
There is expressed indeed a full “grandness” in the arrangements. This is especially very successful for the first three (of five) tracks. Here we hear creations of very rich cooperative sounds without any dominating instrument, and also a whole series of stylistic theme dominated parts. Rich in sounds for instance is the first part with nicely played violin and the mixtures with choir arrangements.
This is followed by Genesis-like keyboards mixed with acoustic guitars, followed by a post-Scandinavian scene-alike mellotron with electric guitars, then a few intelligent symphonic-jazzrock rhythmic evolutions, evolving to a neo-symphonic round-a-bout-intensity of complexities, including some flute and violin and more electric parts.
It is obvious that a lot of work must have gone into this. For the total concept this must have been some 2 years in the writing, rehearsing, rewriting, re-recording and arranging, until all was perfect. And the result is worth hearing having put in so much effort. Such tracks surely stand out well against the better classic 70s-90s examples!
The third track is based upon a moody 2-chord keyboard/bass theme, turning once more, rather quickly, into more sympho-jazzrock complexity, which thanks to the rhythmically interesting bass/rhythm evolutions, succeeds well in overcoming a saturated feeling of the dense arrangements. Also the next track starts calmly, partly classical but then becomes mostly more neo-symphonically arranged, first with a not too complex inside melodic theme drift this time, having baroque flavours leading to much more saturating arrangements, perhaps because the melodic theme is stretched in much larger part, leaving no time to breath or to find another focus. The theme still thoroughly changes, but not enough to get rid of the feeling that for this longest track a more generalised dense method of arrangements is used.
Of all the positive things I have noticed on the first tracks less of these qualities are used on these two last tracks. They fall back more on the melodic neo-symphonic area, due to the underlying theme and structure which could not have had much more made from it. Despite all that, the attempt has had its long moments of greatness but just fails to surprise as much for a full album's length.
Leading musicians are the Baltimore based keyboardist Dan Britton and drummer Patrick Gaffney. Guest musicians were mostly from College Park, MD.
