APOGEE / ACCEPT The highest peak of a symphonic rock which explores every musical landscape.
It is a voice that rings alongside the most important of those in symphonic rock, to my ears. Apogee/Accept joins them all in melody, harmony, chorus, and superb performance. Like those one remembers from their youth, the translucent sounds expose us to a multitude of expressions with touching melodies. The sounds on Apogee/Accept allow us to experience extended soundscapes like illusions stretching on to the end of the world. When progressive rock first appeared, it was an experiment in music as "music to progress." It may likewise be said that Apogee/Accept is a modern experiment in rock music drawing together classical, folk, contemporary, and music from around the world. It seeks to involve every musical element and succeeds in integrating them as its original interpretation in progressive rock. The higher it climbs and closer it gets to its own musical apogee, I feel that it becomes "pan-music", which is its own cross-genre inner musical world. The latest album also conveys a jazzy element to realize a sound reminiscent of heavyweights like Yes, especially as one can experience in the first track of the album, "Rose in the sand," which provides us the beat and groove that it hasn't given before.
The originality of Apogee/Accept's sound is a mixture of contradictory aspects; hope and darkness, benevolence and corruption, silence and brutality. Each time I listen, I can't help feeling like I'm falling into a cascade along such a range of diverse auditory and lyrical expressions. The unique nature pulls me back for another listen; this album is a singular chance. On the gentle and clean horizons, the sound reminds us of Yes, Genesis, Camel, and the Moody Blues, while there is an evocation of King Crimson, the Art Bears, and Klaus Schulze on its heavy, dark side. The album Apogee/Aspect will be a single blow of surprise for all symphonic rock fans.
Hisao (the creative mind behind this project) played every instrument, saw to all aspects of programming, and lent his own voice to this entire album except for the snare drum on track 8. The fruits of the musical experiments and disciplines that he's taken in repeatedly are condensed tightly here. "Pan-music" breathes deeply in each of the ten tracks of the album.
Finally, let me talk about the concept of Apogee/Accept album. "Rose in the sand" is an important symbol in its context. It is a symbol of tragedy and, at the same time, a symbol of hope. It's an image so important that it also appears in its jacket design. It alludes to urgent crises of the human spirit many go through nowadays, and also the relief that is explored along the streams of its musical riverscapes. Losses, grief, pain: they may be life itself, but the will to overcome them is a gift to us. The universal theme of all life. How could he succeed in describing such a intense and riveting story in a piece of rock music? The reason is that it is" Pan-music." It's the kind that requires rich insight into the world and the courage to be free from musical styles and categorization. "Pan-music" is the creation beyond sonic boundaries.
As symphonic rock, it reaches the world's highest peak now on the point of its original creative attitude. (Shigezane Saneshige)