Perilous

Perilous was the third Glass Hammer album to feature Jon Davison on vocals and Alan Shikoh on guitar, and the band had fully found their feet by the time of this 2012 release. While '70s prog rock remains the dominant influence, it's not quite as overt as it was on the previous few albums. Instead, Glass Hammer take that same basic toolkit and use it to craft a rather more singular sound. And while Cor Cordium and If were each occupied by a handful of lengthy art-rock expeditions, Perilous manages to play both sides of the fence—it features 13 comparatively concise cuts, but they're all intended as individual parts of a conceptual suite. Though the story is seemingly one of a journey through some scary circumstances, Fred Schendel's kaleidoscopic keyboard tones, Davison's sunny tenor, and Shikoh's aqueous guitar lines seldom turn the corner into ominous territory—that'd be too obvious. And a 21st-century Nashville-based band with a sound inspired by a '70s U.K. subgenre is clearly not interested in playing to people's preconceptions.