Band: Hope to Find

CD Title: “Still Constant”

Band Website: www.myspace.com/hopetofind

Label: Independent

Release Date: 2010

 

Progressive Rock music knows no borders. I’d be willing to bet there’s at least one prog band in every country on this planet. Some creative group of individuals who are pushing the boundaries of the traditional music scene and charting a personal musical course. In Turkey that band is Hope to Find who contacted me about the release of their first CD entitled Still Constant. The quintet is made up of Zafer Yuksel (guitars, vocals), Seckin Can Koyuncu (guitars), Alper Dagalp (keyboards), Erdem Korkmaz (bass) and Orkun Sen (drums). Hope to Find’s musical style lies in the heavier side of the Prog genre but they inject some interesting elements into their music that lifts it up a notch or two from the ordinary.

  

Still Constant features four tracks amounting to a total of 27-minutes of music so it’s more of an EP but while the playing time is short the level of musicianship is very high. Things get underway with “The Grand Opening” [6:59] that begins with some introductory riffs before settling into a heavy groove and then at the 4-minute mark they pull it back and it gets almost a little jazzy for a brief interlude before getting back into the songs main themes. While the songs themselves are not overly complex each musician really take the opportunity to play and each gets a spot to shine and that’s where the complexity comes in. There is a lot of virtuosity on display here; almost a kind of jazzy influence. Track two “Walking Walls” [6:10] starts off all soft and mellow with strumming guitar and tinkling piano. It slowly builds into a series of cascading climaxes before the vocals come into the picture. The music of Hope to Find is never overly heavy but it sure gets busy at times. There are moments where everybody is doing a solo, the guitar, the keyboards, the bass and the drums, everyone, and yet it really comes together very well. Their music features plenty of musical dynamics, lots of starts and stops and musical change-ups. Trust me it’s never boring.

 

This is a very polished first effort. Hope to Find have been together since about 2003 and they’ve really developed a tight performance style and their compositional skills demonstrate a keen sense of the progressive rock philosophy. The four tracks on Still Constant certainly bode well for the future. If you enjoy your progressive rock a little heavier but still displaying the intricacies and subtleties of a wider range of influences, Hope to Find will fill the bill quite nicely. I wish them all the best.