The Store Of All The Worlds is part III in Tom Byrne's multi-album epic, based on the "Barddas", a purported transcript of the lost oral tradition of the ancient British. [I'm going to take some liberties using Tom's own words to describe the themes of these albums.] Part I - The Last Druids - (see AI #22) focused on the fall of the civilization of these times, attempting to musically describe the loss of lives, land, philosophy and culture. Part II - The Eye Of The Cyclone - (see AI #24) is intended to provide an expression of the beliefs that the protagonists of The Last Druids might have held.

The latest in the series is The Stores Of All The Worlds, which uses both current and science fiction themes to describe the day to day experience of the times. There's a lot of detail to convey but I'll leave it to the interested reader to visit Tom's web site for more info. Check it out as this is well researched concept album heaven.

Musically the series just gets better with each release. Two things that are new to Store Of All The Worlds is the addition of guitar on some tracks and a singer. The Last Druids was all instrumental, and both that and Eye Of The Cyclone were created solely with Tom's keyboards. The Store Of All The Worlds adds guitar to the mix, compliments of Michael Blackman, who many of you may know from Alien Dream and Space Mirrors, and Kevin Williams, who is credited as being from Fate's Cruel Joke. Plus we've got a vocalist - Tim Pringle. Eye Of The Cyclone had narration by Tom, but the singing on Store is a nice addition.

The Celtic influences heard on the first two albums are absent on Store Of All The Worlds, but the album does have a cohesive musical theme, most of the songs having a kind of bouncy groove. Each track transitions seamlessly into the next, making this very much an album to be experienced from beginning to end. It also sounds like Tom might have got his hands on some new equipment since Eye Of The Cyclone as the keyboards sound great. The music is based in classic progressive rock, though, like Cyclone, there are space rock influences to be heard throughout. The album also has a more modern feel, whereas the Celtic stylings on the previous albums helped to create the medieval atmosphere. The "Buddha In The Internet", the spacey prog rock feel and efx'd robotic voices on "Fifth Generation", the narrative style/voice samples of "They're Taking Out A Piece Of My Head" and "Three Minutes", and "Grey Goo", all support the contemporary and sci fi feel that Tom intentionally used to create the music.

It all flows beautifully and the music has an enjoyable combination of whimsical vibe, prog symphonics and space rock. (This prog-space rock blend is best exemplified by the excellent "Grey Goo".) A well thought out and constructed blend of music and song, and a good fun listen.

The Eye Of The Cyclone

The second album in what threatens to be a conceptual trilogy, Eye Of The Cyclone was recorded in 2003, and like its’ predecessor is now available from the resources listed at the end of this article. Tom bills this as a space rock album, but it seems to me to pick up where the Last Druids left off, with the opening passage of Part 1 (the album consists of Part 1, lasting 30 minutes, and Part 2, lasting 19 minutes) hitting all the same reflexes. However, there are a couple of touches here and there which hint at the spacier direction: the Oldfieldisms are overlaid with an additional swathe of synthy sweeps and treated spoken vocals (these I did not enjoy). True to his talents for thematic development, Tom adds some nice harmonized electric guitar parts at around the three minute mark and some phased acoustic guitar, over a reasonably prog / psych chord progression: but the lead voices are, er, stereo flutes...

This is not quite the cosmic blanga that might be expected, although it would be possible to rearrange this track as a Hawkwindesque space rock opus with some additional punch on the bass / drums / guitar – having said that, some rock percussion kicks in at 7 minutes, placed surprisingly high in the mix, and this propels Part 1 in an altogether spacier direction. I would even so still like to hear Tom’s excellent synth playing underpinned by something louder and cruder than is allowed by his keyboard player’s instinctive bias towards the melodic and the harmonic over the rhythmic.

One interesting diversion at around 14 minutes is an 80’s motif, featuring a syncopated bassline, synth lead and muted guitar...the addition of an atonal synthesizer voice a minute later adds interest, and I think this could be an avenue for future exploration. It does not stay around for long, being subsumed back into the main theme, which weaves along for another few minutes, before Part 1 really comes to life after 22 minutes or so. This begins with a new passage where everything works perfectly, seguing back into the main theme again, but this time with all the stops pulled out on the arrangement. With some properly spacey synth voices at the forefront of the mix, it bounces along excellently. In terms of heaviness this is nowhere near Hawkwind (say), but at last Part 1 is really starting to exude conviction and commitment – there’s even a bit of punky thrashing on the guitar, with the other instruments backing off in a couple of places to let it be heard. This lattermost section of the track is by far the most enjoyable, coming to a close at 30:51 with a great bit of wobulated synth.

Dark, treated Gregorian vocals and an excellent bit of arranging open Part 2, and are joined by muted and then melodic lead guitars. The momentum built up towards the end of Part 1 has not been lost, and the Oldfield nuances come across strongly given this more muscular treatment, which includes some good atonal keyboard work. A second theme coming in at around 3:20 brings us more into Kansas territory, although this is diffused by the onset of more spoken lyrics. A pastoral movement succeeds this, Cor Anglais voice to the fore, I think: and as a result, the spaciness that came through more strongly towards the end of Part 1 has now completely vanished – but we’ve not slipped back into the mists of time to the Last Druids. This is a more mature composition and a stronger arrangement. There’s even a hint of an epic Western theme here, invoking the peaks of Monument Valley, Utah in 35mm slow motion if you really let yourself get carried away, even though it’s played with virtually a solo piano part! But Tom does not let the piece drift off course for too long, and brings things around to restate the main theme from Part 1, driving the tempo upwards to close out the album.

Overall, The Eye Of The Cyclone is a stronger effort than The Last Druids, and I suspect represents a further development in Tom’s musical career, away from the celtic elements of his first album, if not quite arriving at the definition of space rock. I am interested to see where he goes next.

The Last Druids

Home recorded in 2002, and now available on Statue Records, The Last Druids is Tom Byrne’s first album and a highly original piece of work, being based upon 6 fragments of history from Dark Ages Britain. These were preserved together in a single annal but each represents different events and people. Although this is an instrumental album, Tom has made a cohesive whole from this material, with an album consisting of six tracks with a unified musical flavour.

That flavour is a fusion of celtic music with progressive rock – to my ears, skewed more towards the former. Tom’s primary instrument is the keyboard, and this is a very keyboard dominated album, in terms of feel and arrangement more than instrumentation. There are a number of extremely convincing sounding synth samples here, bringing harpsichord, tympani, violins, choral effects and chimes to the party. The opening track, ‘The Region Of The Summer Stars’ threads all these voices with dreamy synth sweeps and skillfully withdraws some voices to bring in others, such as a fabulously authentic sounding cello voice. There is something hauntingly familiar about this blend of melodies, layered arrangements and celtic nuances – at 5:25, a piccolo starts up, and that “what-does-this-remind-me-of?” feeling falls into place. The succeeding melody over an ascending three-chord progression reinforces this: it’s intensely reminiscent of Mike Oldfield’s early work (Hergest Ridge or Ommadawn more than the better-known Tubular Bells).

Elsewhere, monkish choral effects and sepulchral bells are blended in with the odd bit of unsettling synth noise, and it becomes apparent that Tom’s music works best when he finds a darker theme….on track 2 (‘The Dragons Of Dinas Emrys’), for example, there is one light, poppy section where the strings bring to mind late 60’s TV ads for a slimmer’s bread called Nimble, which doesn’t really square with the title of the track. Whenever the prog influences loom largest is when the music really starts to function. These prog influences tend to be more textural, with the celtic influences being mediated by the choice of instrumentation and melody line. But they can also be heard in the structural complexity of this stuff: which is at first difficult to discern due to the skill with which the themes are interwoven. (Being almost entirely instrumental doesn’t help much, either!)

The interesting thing about this is that each individual theme is simple at heart, typically consisting of a two-, three- or four-chord progession, with layers of keyboard and (some) guitar overlaid on this. But given the scope of each individual composition (most are over ten minutes in length), different themes emerge, recede and return seamlessly – you really can’t see the joins, and one result of this is that you recognize passages of music, but never feel as though the album is repeating itself, or consists of disparate sections bolted together.

The remaining tracks are ‘The Battle of Badon Hill’, ‘The Great Conflagration’, ‘A Short Life’ and ‘Knowing Another World’ – none really expands beyond the palette used by the two opening compositions, and I came away with the feeling that Tom is better at atmospherics than arrangement, which was basically too celtic for my taste. But this is nonetheless a highly accomplished piece of work, and merits the success that Tom has had with it.

A rare chance to see Alien Dream at the Barn stage was not missed! Those who have the first album "Alien Dream" will know what sort amazing music was to be had. Michael Blackman jetted in all the way from Australia to play live, and it was noted as one of the high-lights of the festival especially as he was accompanied by Tom Byrne, the musician responsible for several albums which I discussed with him at length later.

The barn area seemed to be typically uncrowded but as Alien Dream played it soon filled, and the strange, almost alien music that drifted about caught many people's attention. The set list was as follows: Brainscan (festival mix), Alien Dreamscape, Moons & Stardust (festival mix), Aqua Gardens, Journey, Microscope and Forever Tomorrow. Tom also played two of his solo tracks "A Short Life", dedicated to his son, Gerard, who died in 1999 aged only 12 - a very sentimental and emotional piece and the last section of "Part One" of the The Eye of the Cyclone. The music was available for sale and I was fortunate to get Alien Dream's limited edition festival EP number 3 of 100, and Tom's solo cds The Last Druids and The Eye Of The Cyclone (see Aural Innovation reviews on these excellent albums).

I spoke to Tom afterwards who said he was pleased with the performance and the audience's reaction. Later Tom told about his interests in prog rock and the rich vein of ancient history which he is interested in.

"I thought I would do a series of albums that were inspired by those aspects of Britain that weren't terribly well known - "The Last Druids", focusing on those characters we know about from the fragmentary histories of the time, "The Eye of the Cyclone", a personal expression of the theology they may have had, as documented in the Barddas (alleged transcriptions of an ancient oral tradition). The next album in this series, "Einigan Gawr" will deal with the origins of these beliefs - it's my attempt to write an epic poem and put it to music. I've written the poem, now the mental exercise of setting it to music begins!"

Tom is very busy and has another album due out soon too. "The Howling Tower" is a stand alone digression, a single concept album of an atmospheric story that impressed him when he read it as a teenager. From the sneaky preview samples he sent me, I can tell you its going to be a classic, a well orchestrated album as good as The Last Druids. And as his son Matthew got some rather good feedback at the festival drum workshop, Tom might persuade him to play drums for the album. Tom also told me that Michael should be working on the fourth Alien Dream album by now - so watch this space.

The latest from Tom Byrne is the second installment in a planned multi-album epic that takes place in Britain during the dark ages. Part I was titled The Last Druids and is an instrumental portrait of the times and the principle characters Taliesin, Merlin Ambrosius, Aneirin, Llywarch the Old and Merlin the Wild. The music is based in classic progressive rock and heavily informed by Celtic folk music. Chuck wrote the review of this CD in AI #22 and compared it to Rick Wakeman, Vangelis and David Arkenstone, though to my ears it bears a strong resemblance to early Camel, The Snow Goose in particular. Another point of emphasis is that Byrne creates the music using all keyboards and electronic instruments, and listening to both these albums I have to say I'm stunned at the extent to which he succeeds in creating music that in most cases demands the inclusion of acoustic instruments (i.e., I barely noticed they were missing).

Part II of the series is titled The Eye Of The Cyclone and is, as Byrne says, intended to provide an expression of the beliefs that the protagonists of The Last Druids might have held. Byrne's inspiration for the work comes from a body of writings called The Barddas, which are purported to have been compiled from the writings of the 15th century bard Llewellyn Sion.

The CD is 50 minutes in length and consists of two parts. While the music is very much in the same style of The Last Druids, space rock elements are also apparent on the new album. Whereas The Last Druids was all instrumental, The Eye Of The Cyclone includes narration, and Byrne's spoken word style has a dark feel that brings Hawkwind to mind. The music has a powerful majestic progressive rock quality that also happens to be occasionally embellished by cool little freaky alien bits. These are secondary to the main themes but add a nice edge to the music that helps to give it an identity beyond that established on The Last Druids. And when the music rocks out Byrne does an excellent job of maintaining a classic prog style while injecting space rock elements into the mix. The last several minutes of Part 1 and the beginning of Part 2 are standouts in this regard. But above all, Byrne excels at thematic development and paints a lush aural landscape that transports listeners back hundreds of years to witness the time and events for themselves.

Those who pine away for the glory days of prog rock concept albums will revel in Byrne's work, and it's clear he has done serious research into his subject. I'm sure some people will be picky about the keyboard representation of certain instruments. But if listeners will just allow themselves to get lost in the story and let the images of the times conjure in their minds, then I'm sure, like myself, they will be impressed with how well Byrne is able to reproduce both electric and acoustic guitars and yes... even drums. Recommended.

Let yourself be whisked away to the ancient, mythological past with Tom Byrne’s new CD, The Last Druids.

As the title may suggest, this is progressive rock heavily influenced by British and Celtic folk music. Though, intriguingly, there is not an acoustic instrument to be found. Byrne creates his sonic paintings entirely with keyboard sounds. At first it can be a little unnerving, because you keep expecting to hear an acoustic guitar, or tin whistle or Celtic harp to join in, but as you relax and get into it, Byrne’s music seduces you, and you forget that you are listening to primarily synthesized sound.

While the album is conceptual (it follows the lives of some semi-legendary figures at the dawn of Dark Age Britain, including the bard Taliesin and prophet wizard Merlin Ambrosius), it is entirely instrumental, four long tracks, ranging from 10 to 14 ½ minutes, and two short tracks in the 1 to 2 minute range. Lush and dynamic, Byrne’s music is full of abundant themes and atmospheres, brought to life by haunting and exuberant melodies. The music is intricate and often multi-layered, though Byrne shies away from using any really complex time signatures or changes, which may disappoint some prog rock fans.

Nonetheless, this should still appeal to fans of classic Rick Wakeman and Vangelis, as well as modern acts like Soniq Theater and David Arkenstone.