Marvin B Naylor -
Bright Blinds


(CD 2019, 44:07, Barcarolle Records BARC 007)

The tracks:
  1- Starboy
  2- Once Upon A Tree
  3- Timeling
  4- Tilly Finn & Dancing Ledge
  5- Stormy Weather
  6- Words That Never Come True
  7- Thought That You Were Leaving
  8- Deep Blanket Day
  9- Colours
10- For Ever
11- Chapter Inverse

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Until today I wasn't familiar with Marvin B Naylor. Because no bio was delivered, I had to do some research on the internet.

Marvin B Naylor was born in England but raised in Canada. He mainly plays all kind of string instruments, especially guitars. Besides the guitars he knows how to play the piano pretty well. On the You Tube channel you can find some short- but very nice fingerpicking style videos. Marvin B Naylor definitely can play guitar. As a musician and co-writer, back in the eighties, Marvin B Naylor was member of Tim Friese-Green's band Salvation Sun. Friese-Green is of course best known as member of the legendary Talk Talk. Marvin B Naylor released his first solo album, Monsters And Mad Things, in 2004.

In 2019 the album Bright Blinds was released. On the album Marvin B Naylor plays electric- and acoustic guitars, laptop slide guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, piano, Stylophone and is also responsible for all the orchestral arrangements. He was assisted by Gary J Brady who did the drum programming, additional percussions and he assisted on the orchestral arrangements.

Bright Blinds contains eleven mostly concise songs. Only the last track Chapter Inverse touches the six minutes. At first glance you could draw the wrong conclusion that this is a real singer-songwriter album. But that's not true. The album is really comprehensive, diverse, has a more or less dark atmosphere and could easily be classed as a neo progressive album.

Almost all the songs are guitar driven. Naylor controls the fingerpicking style in an excellent manner. There are quite some tracks on which he sounds like Steve Hackett or like Anthony Phillips. Even the vocals have some parallels.

Main influences can be named: Pink Floyd, Steve Hackett, little seventies Genesis, The Beach Boys and The Beatles. Most of the tracks have modest vocals. Tilly Finn & Dancing Ledge and Deep Blanket Day are instrumental parts. The general atmosphere on the album is rather tranquil and a little dark. So, don't expect up-tempo rock song and shredding guitar solos. Maybe the best way to describe the album is that it is for musical connoisseurs. It is nice and balanced and didn't bore me one minute.

I must confess that when I saw the artwork of the album at first, I never would have thought that this album would be so highly appreciated by me. I found the artwork a little old fashioned. But I learned once more not to judge a book by his cover.

**** Aad Bannink (edited by Dave Smith)

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