III is the rather appropriately titled third album from Arcade Messiah, an instrumental music project of John Bassett. Although only six tracks in duration, the album definitely takes the approach of ‘quality over quantity’ and each of the tracks shines in its own way.
Arcade Messiah takes the listener on a musical journey over the course of the album, painting beautiful pictures in sound, and the album as a whole is a stunningly immersive listen. It draws you in from the first few notes as the scene is set, and manages to maintain your interest from start to finish with each different twist and turn it takes. There’s a good blend of different styles in the piece, bringing together approaches such as prog, ambient and post-rock, and it all merges together well.
Life Clock, the fourth track, is perhaps the strongest of the album. The introduction is spine-tinglingly good, dripping with emotiveness, and the song just progresses well from there with little repeating lines worming their way into your head and the lush instrumentation adding a whole lot of ambience and atmosphere to it all.
All in all, a great album from Arcade Messiah – this is exactly what instrumental music should be!
9/10
