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The Cerces-Live in St Louis
By admin | April 28, 2008
After spending the better part of the weekend trying to get my home theater sound system to make a sound…I looked around for a CD to check things out. It just so happened I had an unopened copy of The Cerces “Live in St Louis” CD (and DVD) which I put in. The first tune came on “A Mighty Fortress” which totally blew me away. The excellent track, the vocal harmony, the song itself (a classic regardless of whether you’re modern, or not so modern like me) was downright inspiring and uplifting.
There’s a lot to like about the Cerces. One thing that I love is their ability to move from one style of music to the other seamlessly. Mixing and matching music is an art in and of itself, and making a program work with such a wide variety of musical influences can be tricky, but these folks seem to do it effortlessly.
Another thing I like is the close harmony the group has. It soundss a lot like “family” harmony to me, where the blend is very good and no one voice dominates. I know acheiving that sound takes a lot of woodshedding, although it looks easy when you see and hear them. There’s a lot of behind the scenes preparation that goes into making that kind of harmony.
And the songs….there’s some real gems on this CD. I don’t think there’s a bad one on the project. Each tune stands on it’s on. One of the more memorable ones to me is “Refiner of Gold.” One of those tunes that sounds hauntingly familiar, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard it before. Beautiful melody, and the lyrics are quire thought provoking.
Honestly, I often pass on live projects. I just like to hear polished studio projects in general. But the sound here is very, very good. AMF, it sounds as good as many studio projects I’ve heard lately. The tracks are crisp…orchestations sound big like real live orchestras, blending perfectly with the vocals. Excellent job on the production here.
I especially liked the section of the program where Cliff plays the piano and they group performs with just piano and vocals. There’s a lot of groups these days that just use tracks, and there’s a few groups that use nothing but piano. Nice to see a group that can do both. I play a little myself, and after listening to Cliff I tell ya, I’m going to swipe some those tasty gospel bluesy licks he uses…:)
I’m not a reviewer, but just wanted to give kudos to a job well done. Maybe I can get my DVD working next weekend and watch the video…:)
Check out this group at http://www.thecerces.com/