(((O))) Review: Leon Alvarado – The Wicked Forest

The opening to ‘The Big Bang’ speaks volume. At first, you think of the ambient, nightmarish, yet dystopian worlds that French artists like Moebius and Phillippe Druillet had envisioned in Heavy Metal magazine. But as soon as the eruptive instruments start to kick in, it becomes this worldly view of a powder keg waiting to explode at any second.

That’s what Leon Alvarado had brought forth with his latest album, The Wicked Forest. Released on the Melodic Revolution label, Leon has shown no sign of stopping. Dedicated to CIRCA’s Johnny Bruns, who sadly passed away last year due to a losing battle with cancer, is a sign of grief, remembrance, keeping his legacy alive, and making sure the spirit of Yes and CIRCA flows brightly into this album.

With Billy Sherwood, Jon Davison, Bruhns, and Griggers on the album, not to mention Leon’s wife, Linda, writing the lyrics on tracks 2 and 3, Leon takes listeners into the pages of this darker, red-colored vision with intense percussion arrangements, vigorous keyboard work, and storytelling experiences in a way Leon has envisioned by bringing these images to life.

Following up on The Changing Tide, The Wicked Forest, when you hear a title like that, you can envision the spirit of both Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal magazine bringing this story in its comic-book form in a Twilight Zone-esque parallel universe that gives Marvel the giant middle finger. This wasn’t superheroes saving the day but almost a dystopian city that’s on the brink of collapse.

Tracks like ‘Man in a White Car’ and ‘Urban Disturbance’ get you pumped up and mix in this film-noir-like texture with heavy guitar improvisation and melodic back-and-forth between that and keyboards, set in these mid-to-late 1930s, early 1940s private detective film serials, but with a gumshoe-like approach, while the gentle turned piano concerto featuring mellotron-like choirs, eerie synths, and orchestral boundary behind ‘Chase in Three’ sets up the missing clues the killer has left the detective to pick up the pieces to get the case solved in 24 hours.

The sliding guitar introduction behind ‘Beyond’ gives us an insight, nearly going into Goblin’s territory, which speaks of the Tenebre era from the early ‘80s during the Giallo period before walking into this surreal reflection by facing reality as Jon Davison details the death of a tear and the expanse of how the world has gone horribly wrong. The last two tracks, ‘Lost in the Forest’ and the title track, go into some funked-up vibes thanks to Billy Sherwood’s bass.

Sherwood isn’t playing like Squire but more of a combination between Bootsy Collins and Stanley Clarke, as the sixth track brings to mind Bowie’s Low era, where Linda could have written lyrics for ‘A New Career in a New Town.’ I wouldn’t compare it to Yes, because it would be much of a cop-out, but it has stronger vibes of the Berlin School of Music, which definitely speaks volumes before closing it out with the title track.

Here, Leon steps up to the baseball plate, tackling the Italian prog-rock momentum on this instrumental piece. It’s not just Goblin, nor Rick Wakeman, nor Yes, but the twists of Metamorfosi; Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso; Deep Purple’s Jon Lord; and the striking forces of the Selling England era from Tony Banks. It’s all right in front of your face to give it the proper send-off as it heads back into the deserted highway to see what adventures will await it.