Review Summary: A dream-like melodic journey.
Night-time cold and flu tablets do weird things for my dreams. I remember one time taking a dose and dreaming that I was flying over a pristine river, surrounded by flowers in bloom and being without pretense, like some sort of heavenly journey. I mention this experience because that's precisely the experience CHON's latest effort "Grow" reminds me of. With a healthy mix of ethereal Guthrie Govan inspired melodies and Animals As Leaders style polyrhythmic percussion, this record took me on an aural journey like very few other records have.
As the record flows from the spacious opening track 'Drift' into the gorgeously chaotic riff on the track 'Story', it is clear what this record is about
: engaging the listener with a balance of rapid riffs and serene, atmospheric passages. For the most part these are played with a crisp, jazzy guitar tone, which effectively emphasises the clarity and ring of each individual note and each chunky chord. With their more than effective combination of these elements, CHON make many tracks here interesting to listen to on subsequent listens. No matter how many times I come back to the track 'Knot', for instance, I still grin cheek-to-cheek; that harmonisation of the main riff around the one-minute point of the track is simply excellent. The same applies for 'Perfect Pillow'.
However, for every joyous song in this album there's a moment where there's simply not enough contrast to keep things interesting. Take, for instance, the track 'Can't Wait', one of two tracks on the album featuring vocals. I actually think the vocals here are really nice, but aside from the sweet jazz standard inspired opening riff, the instrumentals here are rather bland compared to the remainder of the album. The same here goes for 'Suda', except that I was engaged on first listen, but listening again the melody is pretty much non-existent, and the track does nowhere near enough to stop me from pressing that skip button. Compounding this is this band's flagrant overuse of the major 7th chord. For those not in the know, it's basically that far-too-sweet chord that's used in every jazz standard ever...it pops up in pretty much every track on this album, and far too often. When people call out CHON as a one-trick pony, that's what I put it down to, at least from a melodic sense.
Despite its (few) flat, monotonous moments, the high points on this record make it a great prog/fusion album. Its combination of instrumental prowess and almost lucid tone make "Grow" a really intriguing album to listen to, regardless of whether or not you're a guitarist, or even a musician.
