(2020) The Amorphous Androgynous - We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal


Review:
The Amorphous Androgynous return with symphonic 41 minute We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal in 6 epic parts. Featuring the legendary Peter Hammill (the Van Der Graaf Generator) on vocals alongside a host of musicians including Paul Weller (piano and guitar) Ray Fenwick (Spencer Davis Group / Ian Gillan Band) on lead guitar, Brian Hopper (Caravan / Soft Machine) on sax and many others including the 50 piece Chesterfield Philharmonic Choir and a 25 piece sumptuously recorded live orchestral string section. Opening with the 13 minute epic space prog rock of title track ‘We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal’ (written with Peter Hammill and Paul Weller) the themes of mortality and immortality are then musically and conceptually catapulted to the far flung corners of the AA sonic multiverse over 40+ minutes utilizing choir, moog, a live orchestral string section, piano, harp and a plethora of vintage synth all fed against a backdrop of classic rock and psych samplerdelia courtesy of the Amorphous Androgynous. Space Odyssey like dystopian choirs and moog of ‘Hymortality’ crash full force into the Led Zep Bonham- like drums of ‘the Immortality Break’ before cascading down into the harp daydream reverie and minimoog space landings, choir and french romantic strings of ‘Physically I’m Here, Mentally Far, Far Away’. ‘Psych Recap’ is all backwards voices and guitars / samplerdelia over pounding Tomorrow Never Knows era Beatles bass and drums with dislocated Peter Hammill psychedelic tripped out vocals while ‘Synthony On a Theme of Mortality’ builds from an almost Vangelis Bladerunner-esque vintage synthony of some of the themes of the original track (utilising the classic 70s Yamaha CS80 synth beloved of Vangelis))  before triumphantly soaring to lift-off atop a Pink Floyd-like female wailing aria (KENDRA FROST – vocals) against classic vintage guitar rock bringing the whole album to a triumphant ending.





Tracklist:
01 - We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal
02 - Hymortality
03 - Immortality Break
04 - Physically I'm Here, Mentally Far, Far Away
05 - Psych Recap
06 - Synthony


Media Report:
Genre: prog-rock
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits