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██▌ Artist...: Submarine Silence ░▐██▌
░▐██ Album....: Atonement of a Former Sailor Turned Painter ░██▌░
▓▐██ Year.....: 2025 ▓▐██▓
▓▐██ Rel. Date: 2025-08-05 ░▐██▓
▐██ Genre....: Progressive Rock ██▌░
░ ██▌ Label....: Ma.Ra.Cash Records ██▌
▐██ Source...: CD ▐██
░▐██▌ Type.....: Album ▐██▌░
▓▄████ Quality..: VBR, 44.1kHz, Joint Stereo ████▌░
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1. Majestic Whales (feat. Roine Stolt) 6:38
2. Les Mots Que Tu ne Dis Pas 6:13
3. Limbo of the Rootless 8:06
4. Atonement of a Former Sailor Turned Painter - 1:22
Guadeloupe
5. Atonement of a Former Sailor Turned Painter - Port of 2:02
Spain
6. Atonement of a Former Sailor Turned Painter - Shango 2:43
Orishas
7. Atonement of a Former Sailor Turned Painter - The 1:49
Floating PainterÆs Palette
8. Atonement of a Former Sailor Turned Painter - Chanson 0:58
α la Lune
9. Atonement of a Former Sailor Turned Painter - 5:56
Port-au-Prince
10. Atonement of a Former Sailor Turned Painter - Niet 3:25
Vergeten!
11. Atonement of a Former Sailor Turned Painter - 2:51
Self-Portrait for Two
12. Zena (CD Extra Track) 3:13
45:16
Embark on a transformative journey with Atonement of a Former Sailor
Turned Painter, a progressive rock experience that goes beyond
musicùit's a narrative of courage, remorse, and the pursuit of meaning.
This unique album stands out not only for its compelling storytelling
but for its lyrics, which span in five different languages (English,
French, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, and Dutch), capturing the rich,
multicultural essence of the Caribbean's seafaring world.
The concept album follows a former sailor seeking redemption through
art, where the turbulent seas of his past are channeled into
brushstrokes that lay bare his restless soul.
Each song and story draws listeners into evocative realms: the
camaraderie of the Leviathan's Dream Tavern, a place of meeting refuge
and shared tales; the haunting Siren's Tooth Reef, caught between storm
and calm, a limbo for souls who glimpse their own unrest; and the
mystical Floating Painter's Palette, where art and memory merge in a
wordless plea for forgiveness and peace.
This album is a sonic logbook, an invitation to navigate uncharted
waters of dreams, regrets, and introspection. Let the music and
storytelling guide you through this odysseyùa vivid exploration of human
fragility and resilience, as notes and narratives weave together a
tapestry of redemption and profound self-discovery. Each song is
accompanied by a short story that embodies its storytelling, enriching
the listener's experience and deepening the narrative context of the
album.
---
ôThey say you shouldn't read books from the last page. They say you
shouldn't watch movies from the last scene. They say you shouldn't...
This time I didn't listen to good advice and started familiarizing
myself with the latest album by Submarine Silence entitled "Atonement Of
A Former Sailor Turned Painter" (which I guess can be translated as:
"The penance of a former sailor who became a painter") from the
insert/cover. And... I don't regret it, because the insert is
exceptional. There are of course lyrics, information about the band, the
recording location, acknowledgments, but they are not the most
important. The insert/cover is another wonderful example of Ed Unitsky's
illustrative skills. I have already allowed myself to write about the
artist in the description of The Samurai Of Prog (feat. Marco Grieco)
album "The Time Machine", but maybe as a reminder it is worth mentioning
the names of several bands and artists whose albums are decorated with
drawings and graphics by this author: The Tangent, The United
Progressive Fraternity, Unitopia, This Winter Machine, Guy Manning,
Moongarden, The Flower Kings, Starcastle, Mandalaband, Nine Stone Close
and Thomas Bodin. These fairy-tale-like and fantasy illustrations appeal
to me every time, because this fairy-tale quality somehow always reminds
me of progressive rock - twisted rhythms, concept albums, compositions
with an "abnormally long" duration. In addition, Unitsky illustrates
individual compositions, he does not create "pictures" decorating the
album insert, but with his drawings he adds and visualizes the content
of the albums. Maybe it suggests an interpretation? ... Probably to some
extent, but it also extracts and "embodies" the message contained in the
songs.
This is also the case with the latest work of the band Submarine
Silence. Just by looking at the cover, we can see that the album will
tell a story about a sailor seeking redemption through art, which, like
the stormy seas of his past, conveys images in brushstrokes that at the
same time expose his restless soul. And a lot happened in the hero's
life, so the musical story of his fate is rich in events. Each song and
the story it tells sends the listener to fairy-tale lands: the
"Leviathan's Dream" Tavern - a place of fleeting shelter, shared stories
and carefree sailor joy; the haunted Mermaid's Tooth Reef - suspended
somewhere between storm and calm and at the same time being an abyss for
lost souls, and finally to the Sailor's Painter's Palette, which tries
to combine art and memory in a wordless plea for forgiveness and peace.
The subsequent pages of the album insert, like a quasi-comic book,
present the listener with images illustrating the compositions heard.
But musically, everything begins with... the endless roar of the ocean,
i.e. with the song "Majestic Whales". From the formal side, it is a
cover of the song of the same title by Anthony Phillips from the album
"Sail The World" from 1994. This short song in its original version
(only three minutes long) grows here to the rank of an almost
seven-minute introduction to a musical journey through the vastness of
ocean memories. This extended composition is not only a wonderful
overture to the rest of the piece, but also a wonderful instrumental
miniature that, looped, can go on and on forever. There are more bold
keyboards than in the original, gentle guitars and simple melodicism
positively force you to familiarize yourself with the fate of the former
sailor. Even the solo by Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings), who
guest-played on this piece, is somehow gentler, somehow soothing.
With the song "Les Mots Que Tu Ne Dis Pas" ("The Words You Don't Say")
begins the real story of the fate of a sailor thrown somewhere far from
familiar places, somewhere far from a sense of security and happiness,
drowning his confusion in alcohol in the tavern "Lawiatan's Dream".
Here, among the shadows and ghosts filling this world, the tired gaze of
the hero of the story that is just beginning is drawn to a stormy
couple: a robust Dutchman with muscles sculpted by the sea and a Creole
girl with a magic smile, who dance a fiery and icy ballet, immersed in
the bitter nectar of despair, locked in a battle of unspoken desires and
shared silence. He, with the hardness of a man who has faced the wrath
of the ocean; she, with the wild fragility of someone who has loved and
lost more times than can be counted. Driven by some mysterious impulse,
the narrative hero begins to hum a melody û a melody woven from
abandoned dreams and intertwined fates. After a while, his humming is
joined by the voice of a dancer and a duet of two souls speaking
different languages ??begins. And so a ballad about hidden longings and
dark dreams is created, which musically begins with an almost
minute-long improvisational organ-guitar intro, which sets the
arrangement direction of the entire composition. For six minutes, the
piece balances between two styles: symphonic-organ immersed in the early
seventies (with a touch of The Flower Kings / Transatlantic, please
listen to the organ û third minute and thirty seconds), and a typical
approach to composing, which we find in the work of bands similar to
Rock Progressivo Italiano. A less attentive listener may have a bit of a
problem at first, because first of all, the entire song is performed in
two languages ??(English and French), and in addition, there are two
intertwined vocal lines: the "sailor" (Guillermo Gonzales) and the
"dancer" (Manuela Milanese). But after all, this is a duet of two souls
speaking different languages... and it is the vocal fragments performed
in a duet that give the whole a dramatic and somewhat despairing tone.
This bilingualism (or even pentalingualism) is a characteristic feature
of the third track on the album - "Limbo Of The Rootless". Yes... There
is no mistake here. The narrative story of the Mermaid's Tooth Reef - an
abyss that has kidnapped a brave sailor and whose spirit is trapped
between death and sleep after being carried away by the raging sea is
sung in five languages: English, French, Portuguese, Dutch and...
Haitian Creole. It is a story about the tides that wash over the shore
and are a message to those who drift û rootless souls lost between
worlds. The sailor, in this piece, is not a conquering hero, but an
eternal traveler. He is a ghostly guide for those brave enough to seek
solace in the dangerous embrace of the reef. His presence is a silent
beacon for those who wander the endless depths, an unwavering star in
the endless sea. This is more or less the story told in this piece.
Musically, please be prepared for many surprises: a guitar, almost folk
beginning that turns into a beautiful folk-neo-progressive ballad that
is slightly reminiscent of the work of the band MOONGARDEN; a guitar
solo, slightly exotic-sounding, in the third minute; wonderful organ
sounds somewhere in the fourth minute that are reminiscent of the sounds
of classic Italian progressive bands; slightly irritating chanted
declamations introducing narrative "confusion" and speeding up the tempo
of the song; a wonderful organ solo halfway through the song; of
course... an over one and a half minute long guitar solo, somewhere in
the sixth minute, and... a "siren song" (performed by Manuela Milanese)
in the final part, which sums up the story of those who seek solace:
"(...) Your call echoes through the wind's howl / A melody for the
restless, a guiding scowl / An enchanted song for those who seek / in
this Reef souls surrender".
The title track from the album "Atonement Of A Former Sailor Turned
Painter" is a suite of over twenty minutes divided into eight parts. The
suite takes us to the historical Caribbean, starting this journey with
an instrumental visit to the island of Guadeloupe, and after a short
gentle introduction played on an acoustic guitar supported by muted and
gently sounding keys, it takes the listener to Port of Spain. However,
this is not about the current capital of Trinidad and Tobago, but about
a mythical place somewhere at the end of the world, which gathered all
sorts of pirates, life's castaways and other scum in the 17th and 18th
centuries. About the place "(...) Where dreams conspire / In the
Tavern's glow where / Hopes catch fire".
The third part of the suite ("Shango Orishas" - the Brazilian god of
nature - RP) brings a change of pace and, being a confession of the
powerlessness tormenting the narrative hero - "(...) In the deep blue
sea / May the low spirits settle in me / Lost souls, drifting / horizons
blur, let them find their cure: / the endless canvas of waters' embrace,
the ocean's whisper through the floating hallway" - with its decisive,
powerful arrangement, pushes the suite onto rock tracks with a melodic
guitar solo at the end. The very short fourth part ("The Floating
Painter's Palette") slows down, adjusting to the words: "(...) Now I'm
left alone / With my brush (...) / In this floating breezeway where
secrets hide", to give way to the equally short fifth part ("Chanson a
la lune") sounding like a repeatedly repeated refrain of a song sung by
a drunken company. It is worth noting the end of this part, which once
again gains pace and power, that from the arrangement perspective it is
marked by a looped and almost monotonous guitar line and improvising in
a jazzy style organ.
The sixth part ("Port-Au-Prince" - the capital of Haiti - RP note) is
again a duet with an acoustic guitar and at the same time probably the
most neo-progressive part of the suite. The almost 45-second guitar solo
should satisfy every listener. The penultimate part ("Niet Vergeten!" -
"We will not forget!") begins unexpectedly. It is a melodeclamation (in
Dutch) woven into the ending guitar solo from the previous part and the
growing sounds of the organ. Its pathetic nature should not be
surprising - it is a reminiscence of a lost sailor, but this idea can
certainly be expanded: it is a reminiscence of all the lost and lost.
ôSelf Portrait Of Twoö is the final part of the entire composition, an
anthem addressed to some unspecified YOU, so maybe that YOU is you,
listener? This outro contains a huge belief in a second chance for
everyone û ô(à) As we paint our souls anewö. Because you can create
yourself anewà
The bonus recording and the last one on the CD is an instrumental piece
entitled ôZenaö. And if ôMajestic Whalesö was initially an introduction
to the rest of the album, this three-minute composition can be
considered a calming ending maintained in a light and, contrary to what
is in the autumn-winter sky, summer atmosphere.
In the entry in the ôencyclopediaö of every fan of broadly understood
progressive music û Progarchives û the band Submarine Silence is written
as follows: ô(à) The group can be regarded as a side-project of the
neo-progressive group Moongardenö. Well... I think it's high time to
delete this term. Maybe someday, maybe somehow... but that was a long
time ago. Besides, the term side-project sounds as if it were something
less important, random, just a musical whim. Meanwhile, the latest album
proves that we are dealing with a band that creates music with a capital
M. It's a pity that their albums are released more or less every four
years, but I hope that will change. In their current line-up, the band
shows that they are in very good shape, and the album is worth
recommending.
And finally, out of my reviewing duty, I will remind you of the line-up:
Guillermo Gonzales (vocals), David Cremoni (guitars), Cristiano Roversi
(organs, synthesizers), Manuela Milanese (vocals), Marco Croci (bass
guitar) and Maurizio del Tollo (drums).
And just a short thank you to Marco Croci for his words, nice
correspondence and a few album tips.
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