Beggars & Thieves

Expose Magazine
Issue No. 30, September 2004

If the CD single is meant to presage the next TRM album (Feathers for Flesh, reviewed next issue), then it should be quite a package. Presented here are two very different pieces that represent the poles of the TRM musical identity. The first song "Beggars & Thieves", is an acoustic waltz that features guitarist Kiarash Emami and bassist Brandon Ross dueling on guitars while drummer Brian (Vonorn) Van Korn lends all manner of sundry percussives to fill out the arrangement. Rounding out the quartet is singer Lynnette Shelley whose lilting and pretty singing trips lightfully and gracefully through the piece. It's a dreamy filk outing and leaves the listener completely unprepared for song number two, the 30-minute "Yellow Are His Opening Eyes". This behemoth seems inspired by mediaeval depictions of hell such as Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. Musical influences range from mid-period KC [King Crimson] improvs (the more evil the better), horror film soundtracks, RIO, and avant rock. The contrast against the single's arboreal first cut is pretty brutal and I for one was completely unprepared. In two pieces, though, one glimpses an extremely versatile and adventurous group which seems unafraid to leave audiences a little baffled in their wake, as the response to the live "Yellow Are His Opening Eyes" seems to indicate. For those seeking darkly-tinged musical adventure, this should be to your liking.

--Paul Hightower

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Sea Of Tranquility
March 2004

The Red Masque: Album, Beggars & Thieves (Promotional Single)
This song ranges from a dark medieval folk to avant garde & back again. For lack of a better description, I would call it “avant garde gothic folk”. The first few minutes comprise deep acoustic guitar with a mandolin picking out a few high notes, accompanying a melodic, rich female chant Then two acoustic guitars play a wonderfully complex passage, but listen for the eerie high pitched choruses of wailing fem vocal effects way in the background. There’s a distinct change in pace as Lynnette’s singing calls to mind a deeper voiced Loreena McKennitt, or a brooding Candice Night. It is a medieval sounding piece, but those spooky vocals give it a chilling effect. At the 5-minute mark only the guitars and the mandolin retain any medieval effect, then we’re into avant garde territory. The two guitars and the bass pick out seemingly random notes in the high registers, with little apparent reference to the original theme. Then the song returns, and the world becomes a pleasantly melodic place again. Very impressive, very gothic, very dark.

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Progressive Ears
September 2003

A single. A 40 minute single, with two tracks, by a quartet consisting of three warlocks and a witch (they can deny it all they want, they don't fool me), all multi instrumentalists.

First track, "Beggars and Thieves" is a mostly acoustic piece, and is a bit like the evil version of Blackmore's Night, with a Crimsony bit in the middle. A very beautiful and haunting tune, a siren call from the lady in the lake.

Now, if the first one didn't scare ya, the second one , "Yellow Are His Opening Eyes", will. Dissonant soundscapes, Lynnette's excellent singing/parlando reminiscent of Bob Calvert and Peter Hammill. If Hammill should do a duet with a female singer, it has to be Lynnette. Eventually it builds up to a '73 Crim type improv, with the difference that where the Crims were competing with each other, this band is playing with each other.

The overall form of the music reminds of Crimson (especially when they improvise), Magma, VDGG, with Goth sauce, but it is a sound of their own. What's more important, is that they have the spirit of the aforementioned : adventurous, intense, scary and uplifting at the same time, and these people know the importance of tension and release.

This would be the perfect band for one of Lord Byron's parties.

-- Jan, Man In Space

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Sonic Curiosity
August 2003

This CD EP from 2003 features 40 minutes of searing progrock with heavy gothic overtones, and is intended to generate interest in the band's forthcoming album "Feathers for Flesh."

The Red Masque is: Kiarash Emami on guitars, mandolin and keyboards, Brandon Ross on bass, acoustic guitar and keyboards, Lynnette Shelley on vocals and percussion, and Vonorn on drums, percussion, theremin, didgeridoo, flute and bass.

There are two tracks on this release. The first ("Beggars & Thieves") is nine and a half minutes long. It begins with lilting acoustic guitar laced with rich vocals, and establishes a renaissance air that is tinged with non-pastoral sentiments. There is a passage during which a meticulous mandolin is harassed by harshly straining noises. The tune finishes up with the reemergence of guitar and vocals, accompanied by a funereal drum as Shelley's voice explodes into an emphatic dose of non-verbal emotion.

The second track ("Yellow Are his Opening Eyes", at a length of 30 minutes) was recorded live on March 29, 2003 at the New Jersey Proghouse. It explores a grittier, more savage side of the band's electrified minstrel sound. For the first few minutes, Shelley recites dark verse over a backdrop of cacophonic abstraction. Outbursts of electric guitar and didgeridoo punctuate the slow evolution from experimentation into melody. Eventually, all the instruments emerge to plunge the tune into a cimmerian abyss of growling cohesion. The drums pound out demonstrative tempos, the guitarist tortures his strings, and the keyboards trickle like a mountain waterfall across a flowered escarpment.

The Red Masque's music exhibits an incensed energy that impresses a sense of malcontentment on a genre that is generally idyllic and pastoral. Progrock from the dark side--for adventurous audiophiles.

-- Matt Howarth

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Blogspot: Otter Ponderings
July 1, 2003

...Besides the obligatory Angalgard and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum CDs, I also got a single from a local band called The Red Masque, which is certainly the right thing to listen to if you want your musical boundaries stretched forcibly wider - but at almost 40 minutes, it's the best four bucks you'll spend, and you really should just for the chance to hear Lynnette Shelley sing. She is pretty damn amazing. I also recommend playing it, if you can, while you drive down a dark road in the middle of the night; that was our first exposure, and oh, wow. (I also had the reaction, "If she's not a Current 93 fan, she should be," but, then, I would.)

- Dan Layman-Kennedy

 

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Sea Of Tranquility
June 2003

...The band was kind enough to send a CD-R of their latest single, to be included on the soon-to-be-released album Feathers for Flesh. Comprising the studio/album version of "Beggars & Thieves", which is a gorgeous yet dark acoustic piece featuring the haunting vocals of Shelley, who sings the medieval lyrics with mystical brilliance,as well as a mammoth live version of another tune from the new album, titled "Yellow Are His Opening Eyes." Fans of Wetton/Bruford era Crimson will get a big kick out of this extended and metallic improv, featuring thundering bass grooves and jagged guitar solos. Based on these two tracks, I think we are soon to be in for a real treat...

-Pete Pardo