Quote Originally Posted by BarryL
My complaint about GH is that for a band, they sound a lot like a one-man band multi-tracking in the studio. This band has no bite, a rather blase vocalist. It's good to hear that the new one has more bite, but what about the vocalist?
This one won't bowl you over either, though its a good album, much better than the two CDs I've heard (Shadowlands and Lex Rex). Carl Groves is from the other Tennessee prog band, Salem Hill. I've heard a couple of SH's album and thought they were very good. The album 'Be' is a good concept album, though it wasn't prog enough for their fans, so the follow-up to that was a very boring affair called Mimi's Magic Moment (and no, I do not know what that means and I'm not sure I want to know).

I like that the guitar is ballsier on Culture Of Ascent, but make no mistake, its still a keyboard affair. Carl Groves is the featured vocalist and while he has an ok voice, he doesn't have a dynamic range. He's still a better vocalists than the sap they usually have. And the female vocal is reduced, on this effort anyway, to mostly backup, though the lead vocal on their Yes cover of South Side Of The Sky, is female. No, you read that right, they do a cover of SSotS, and a rather pedestrian cover at that. Not that it sucked, but it isn't going to make you forget about the original. Oh, it was a good idea I think, considering the concept, correlating mountain climbing to soul-searching (christian themes are less obvious than in the past). But if you're going to do a cover of a well-known tune by a legendary band, then you better hit it out of the park - they don't.

If you're really put off from the GH experience then this prolly won't win you over. For me, its a nice sounding album, but I can think of five prog releases this year that are better. I do like this one better than Sum Of No Evil.