By Jason M. Rubin

For prog fans who consider that the proof of the pudding is long, complex songs with virtuosic solos and exotic instrumentation, no fear: To The Far Away is multitextured and musically exciting.

It is our great good fortune that some artists respond movingly and meaningfully to crises through their art. Certainly musicians do: think of the protest songs during the Vietnam War era; the No Nukes, Live Aid, and Farm Aid concerts; and classical composer John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, written for his many friends who had died of AIDS. On 9/11, jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd was in a New York City hotel preparing for a gig that night, when he saw the devastation outside his window. The following year he released a two-CD set, Lift Every Voice, featuring more than two hours of deeply emotional and spiritual music that expressed his feelings of sadness and hope as a result of America’s newfound fear and vulnerability.

The current crisis, of course, is Covid-19, and musicians are starting to address it in their music. Unfortunately, some, like Van Morrison and Eric Clapton, are using their art and voices to rail against mask and vaccine mandates. But other musicians are looking more deeply into our time of lockdowns and loneliness and expressing more intelligent and empathetic messages about the fragility of life and nature’s uncanny ability to fight back against humanity’s innate sense of entitlement. One such musician is Dave Bainbridge, an English guitarist of growing repute in the current century’s surprising progressive rock revival. His fourth and most recent solo album, To The Far Away, is pointedly inspired by the pandemic, which caused an eight-and-a-half-month separation from his fiancée, who was in Baltimore and unable to fly out of the country.

“Even in such terrible times,” he says in the album notes, “much beauty can be found if we have the eyes to see, and there is always hope.” He also writes that he “found much inspiration whilst walking and running along the country lane on which I lived, immersing myself in the landscape and its sights and sounds as it moved through the seasons.” So it is that the album opens with nature-inspired songs like “Sea Gazer,” “Girl and the Magical Sky,” “Rain and Sun,” and “Clear Skies,” all reflecting an emotional longing contextualized by the wonders of the natural world. “Clear Skies,” in fact, is about how the lockdown in Northern India caused a dramatic reduction in air pollution that resulted in the Himalayan mountain range being visible from a distance of more than 200 kilometers for the first time in decades.

The lyrics of the 14-minute “Ghost Light,” about how performing arts venues had gone dark in the early months of the pandemic, features the first and third stanzas of the poem “Ode” by Arthur O’Shaughnessy, which opens, as all lovers of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory know, with the lines, “We are the music makers/And we are the dreamers of dreams.” But what comes out most clearly in the album is the pain Bainbridge felt because of the separation from his wife-to-be. Songs like “To Gain the Ocean” (“Three thousand miles across the ocean/There my love lies, awaiting me”), “Speed Your Journey” (“Speed your journey across land and sea/Speed your journey, come back to me”), and the instrumental “Fells Point,” the area of Baltimore where they eventually had their reunion, generate a tremendous amount of emotion — especially for the genre of progressive rock.

For prog fans who consider that the proof of the pudding is long, complex songs with virtuosic solos and exotic instrumentation, no fear: To The Far Away is multitextured and musically exciting. Bainbridge plays keyboards, acoustic and electric guitars, bouzouki, and mandolin; Jon Poole handles both fretted and fretless bass guitars; and Frank van Essen plays not just the drums, but also violin and viola. They are accompanied by Troy Donockley on whistles and uilleann pipes, Jonas Pap on cello, and other guests. The lead vocals are by prog princess Sally Minnear (her father, Kerry Minnear, was the brilliant composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist for the noted British prog group Gentle Giant) and Iain Hornal (a touring member of 10cc and Jeff Lynne’s ELO, who also has a pair of solo albums to his credit).

With the pipes and whistles, there is definitely a Celtic flavor to much of the music (not unlike such explorations by Gentle Giant and Jethro Tull), such as the opening “Sea Gazer,” which begins with three minutes of lovely British isle vibes that then seamlessly accommodate Minnear and Hornal’s expressive vocals before a tidal wave of guitar, violin, and keyboards comes and crashes into the shore. “Girl and the Magical Sky” even has Gaelic lyrics, which Minnear handles effortlessly, but the folky song is also punctuated by a powerful guitar solo as drums and bass turn it into a fist-pumper before it’s over.

Dave Bainbridge, an English guitarist of growing repute in the current century’s surprising progressive rock revival. Photo: Facebook

Of the 13 songs on this music-packed, 71-minute disc, seven are instrumentals. Given the quality of the singers’ voices and the poetic lyrics of Lynn Caldwell, one wishes there were more vocal tunes. Still, the music never disappoints. Expertly played and masterfully arranged, the compositions tell stories even without words. “Rain and Sun” makes effective use of the string players. “As Night Falls” is a solo guitar showcase that features Bainbridge at his mournful best. The title track brings guitar and strings together over a propulsive rhythm section in a true prog-Celtic fusion, heavy on the rock and roll and infused with emotional energy.

To this old progger’s ears, the song that sounds the most traditionally progressive — with echoes of Gentle Giant, Genesis, and early King Crimson — is “Speed Your Journey.” Featuring powerful and complex percussion parts, searing guitar and keyboard lines, and Minnear’s voice somehow floating above the din like Sandy Denny with Fairport Convention, it has fast become a favorite on an album with zero bad cuts.

The final piece on To The Far Away is “Something Astonishing,” about which Bainbridge says, “During the pandemic, the UK government … asked people who work in the arts to ‘retrain’ for different jobs. What if the legacy of this difficult time was instead an outpouring of great works of art that will be revered for generations to come?” Indeed, generations to come will learn about the Covid pandemic not just from history books but from albums such as this and other artworks that, instead of being didactic, reveal what it felt like to live through these days. That’s a heady task for a CD, but one that Bainbridge and friends successfully execute from beginning to end. To The Far Away doesn’t sacrifice music for message, but offers both in a marriage that serves as an apt metaphor, considering that Bainbridge and his long-separated fiancée finally were able to get married during the recording of this album.

For more information or to purchase, go to www.davebainbridgemusic.com or www.musicglue.com/iona.

Jason M. Rubin has been a professional writer for more than 35 years, the last 20 as senior creative associate at Libretto Inc., a Boston-based strategic communications agency where he has won awards for his copywriting. He has written for Arts Fuse since 2012. Jason’s first novel, The Grave & The Gay, based on a 17th-century English folk ballad, was published in September 2012. His current book, Ancient Tales Newly Told, released in March 2019, includes an updated version of his first novel along with a new work of historical fiction, King of Kings, about King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Jason is a member of the New England Indie Authors Collective and holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.