Thank you so much, Dmitry M. Epstein and Let It Rock (Canada), for this wonderful review of C.O.R.E. !!

Here is the entire review, reprinted in full below:

Turning international, progressive rock pursuers explore inner light and expand sonic panoramas to shine it on.

Ages seem to have passed since “Circulive: New View” found this band taking stock of their early creative achievements, yet while the collective started working on “C.O.R.E.” soon after coming off-stage when that performance was over, it took them about five years, and recent remodeling, to finish the album. No wonder, then, in the subject of time and impermanence serving as a principal motif here and running from opener “Tempus Horribilis” to centerpiece “Temporal Thing” to “Transmission Error” which forms the record’s finale. What’s wondrous is the ensemble’s newfangled adventurousness and elegance – a possible result of adding two British musicians to the American core and one of the fresh members being a woman who must enhance the group’s sensibility, previously expressed primarily via singer Natalie Brown’s perspective. And though the listener’s left wondering as to why there’s an acronym in the platter’s title, the presence of a riddle could never get in the way of delight.

And delights on display are bountiful. They float into focus once “Tempus Horribilis” has unfolded a cinematic soundscape that’s stricken with effects and full of effervescence, and refract initial excitement through the insistent, reggae-tinged groove of Shelby Logan Warne’s bass which Dave Bainbridge’s scintillating guitar and Andrew Colyer’s ivories flesh out tightly enough to make snippets of spoken word and splashes of vocal harmonies feel like a mere lead-in to dramatic scenes lying further down the road. As Brown and Colyer’s voices mesh to create tension, and Bainbridge’s [guitars] join in, the entire stunning scope of the quintet’s current fantasy flight and their delicate dynamics come to the fore. So if the acoustically tinctured, melancholic ballad “Third Rail” flutters across serrated riffs towards raga, the piano-rippled “Say Their Name” offers more nuanced, Renaissance-scented elegy only to turn it into a funky symphony, with Darin Brannon’s thunderous drums directing the overall storm.

As the rhythm section drive the rapture of “All” to banish a Jon Anderson-shaped shadow from the frame until the nervous, albeit opulent, strands of “Temporal Thing” bring it back, the ensemble masterfully balance instrumental images and enunciated poetry to land on a triumphant plateau. However, “You” is where heavy figures, exquisite passages and folk oratorio blend most perfectly, and “Blindside” is where the players’ souls are laid bare in the most vulnerable, sincere, and hymnal manner. With Natalie aiming for celestial heights and leaving faux-orchestral epic “Transmission Error” – given Joe Deninzon’s violin attack – to flex their progressive-rock muscle into a lyrical fiber, “C.O.R.E.” emerges as a major work that should shed a light on the now-Transatlantic band’s alluring future.

*****

Dmitry and Let It Rock – Thank you so much for these kind words.