Short Reviews [Orion - 2024 - "The Lightbringers"]

Orion is the project of British multi-instrumentalist Ben Jones, and this is his second album, following on from 2023's "The End of Suffering". It sounds like Ben is primarily a guitarist, but the drums are also quite good, and high in the mix while the keyboards are generally there for support and colour. He also has a pleasant voice, and the result is an album which in many ways is more crossover progressive rock than Neo. It is melodic and interesting while never really capturing the imagination and getting out of second gear. There are many struggles for the multi-instrumentalist, but one of the key ones is not having others close enough to the music to be able to bounce ideas off which can take the album to the next level. If I had been sent this back in the Nineties I would have expected this to have been sent to me as a demo tape as opposed to a CD, but there is undoubted promise here, as Ben has some nice melodic ideas, although it has always been my firm belief there is never any excuse for fading out a song instead of finishing it properly ("The Ghosts Among Us"). "This Sickness" shows a somewhat heavier side of Ben, with some nice bass high in the mix, and one can imagine a band turning this into something darker and more dramatic. But at present it is much like the rest of the album in that it is okay, but never anything more than that and consequently not something to which I will soon be returning.