“A lot of those stars actually died millions of years ago. It’s just they’re so far away, the light they created before they died hasn’t finished reaching us yet … You’re looking at a sky full of ghosts.”

Amie Kaufman

Ghost stars. We see them, but they are not really there. They were there once, but now all that’s left is the ripples in the electro-magnetic field that we call light. A sparkling illusion. A gossamer ectoplasm emanating from the spirit of the universe. And don’t they look beautiful?

. . .

I don’t know if that Amie Kaufman quote inspired the seventh album by Sonus Umbra, but I do know that A Sky Full of Ghosts delights the ears just as much as gazing into space delights the eyes.

Sonus Umbra (it means “shadows made of sound”) was originally called Radio Silence. The band was formed in Mexico in 1991, but it wasn’t until 1998 that they secured a recording contract. Their first album, Laughter in the Dark, was released the following year. Legal niceties at that time necessitated a name change, and all subsequent albums carry the Sonus Umbra name.

In their Radio Silence days, they were a trio: Andres Aullet (acoustic guitar, keyboards), Ricardo Gómez (electric and acoustic guitar) and Luis Nasser (bass, keyboards). On A Sky Full of Ghosts, Nasser was joined by: Roey Ben-Yoseph (vocals), Steve Royce (flute, keyboards), Tim McCaskey (guitar), Rich Poston (guitar, keyboards), David Keller (cello) and Andy Tillotson¹ (drums, guitar, keyboards).

Throughout personnel changes and a steady stream of albums, the band has stuck with mainstream progressive rock. And they do it exceptionally well. To the Crotchety ear, they sound a lot like early Genesis (or the unsung and unrecorded² Axis).

A Sky Full of Ghosts only seems to be available in digital formats (CD and download). With its total running time of 64 minutes, it makes no concessions to the limited capacity of a vinyl LP. Its nine tracks range in length from under 3 minutes to nearly 21 minutes; with a little re-ordering, that would fit three sides of vinyl. But who would buy one-and-a-half LPs?

The album kicks off with Antidentity, a nice pun that neatly catches the angst of an identity crisis. It gives the band a rousing workout: intricate acoustic guitar³ and rock flute taking turns with the vocalist over a typical prog rock ground of guitar, keys and drums.

Next is a song with both light flute and heavy guitar elements. The singer is perplexed by a dream: Bleary-Eyed People came out of the woodwork, threatening to overrun the Earth. It’s the after-image in the mind of a snotty Aqualung as he comes round after a long night on the park bench.

Then those strong echoes of Jethro Tull transmute into singable Genesis. Desolation Dreams is a song about despair, emphasised by the deep raspy tones of the cello, but it is not entirely without hope. It wraps up the first third of the album and leads into …

… Hidden In The Light⁴, a 20-minute filling in the song sandwich. It seems to be the story of a maiden who sat upon the Lorelei rock on the Rhine and lured fishermen to their deaths with her enchanting song. There’s an undercurrent of Gentle Giant on this one (and fainter echoes of my beloved Axis).

Your mind is a weapon
Use it

Hidden In The Light

Judging by the titles, the last four tracks are all on the theme of the climate crisis. Losing My Insanity chronicles the emerging realisation that humanity stands on the brink of catastrophe; The Last Menagerie looks back from an imagined future at the mass extinction event we are witnessing now; Time Is Running Out is a stark warning that it will soon be too late to save the planet; The Waves Will Devour The Sea is an instrumental that strikes me as an exclamation along the lines of “Oh, bugger!”; and Apogee quotes from Hidden In The Light, “Your mind is a weapon. Use it. But not against yourself”. Wise words.

Sonus Umbra released a new album, Whiteout, on 1st June. A one-track taster is available on Bandcamp. That illustrates the heavier side of the band’s music and points in a direction I do not wish to go. I will stick with the earlier Snapshots From Limbo, and those shining ghosts in the sky.