Avalon Rising
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hat do you get when you cram five master musicians of divergent styles together in one band?

In the case of Avalon Rising, the answer is: Magic

To say they're the world's foremost practitioners of Celtic/Medieval progressive rock could be meaningless, given the scanty membership of the genre - until you factor in just how damn good they are. Hearing them perform, one is hard-put to say just what kind of music they're playing - just that it rocks, it screams, it soars, it whispers. Elements of classical, Celtic folk, French Medieval, psychedelic jam band and funk interweave, conflict, and finally coalesce into a stunning, surprising whole. One hears echoes of Loreena McKennit, Dead Can Dance, the Grateful Dead, Fairport Convention, and the Pentangle.

They're a motley assemblage. There's the beautiful Flower Princess on harp (not the harmonica, the big wooden thing with all the strings) who also plays flute and recorder and sings in a sweet, classically trained soprano. Then there's the blonde goddess in black velvet, sensuously bowing a purple, cat-headed 5-string electric violin. Does life get any better than this? But wait - in front of a stack of tie-dyed amplifiers, in a bowler hat and John Cippolina t-shirt, pulling a stream of howling, lyrical, psychedelic riffs from a sparkly purple Stratocaster, is a genial bearded hobbit-man who sings in a honeyed tenor. Behind them all sullenly lurk the bassist and drummer, two candidates for Queer Eye who seem to think they're backing up James Brown or The Clash.

Avalon Rising's new album, their second, is called Storming Heaven. Clocking in at a CD-maxing 74 minutes, it includes just about everything you're likely to hear in their current live show, with no less than 6 full-out Celtic rock tune-sets wherein a never-ending assortment of jigs, reels, and other traditional dance tunes are stuck together end to end and raced through like a Hummer on a Grand Prix course, knocking bricks off buildings and smashing statuary along the way. Songs include the lilting Irish Do You Love An Apple, the mystically psychedelic originals Jack Daw and Turning In Time, Papa John Phillips' lost masterpiece Dancing Bear and a handful of traditional British Isles songs.

torming Heaven

1. The Hexamshire Lass 2. Hunt the Blarney Cat 3. Glasgow Peggy 4. The Chieri 5. Sidhe Set 6. The Lark in the Morning 7. Jack Daw 8. Congress Reel/Red Crow 9. Do You Love An Apple? 10. Turning In Time 11. Musical Pesto Set 12. Dancing Bear 13. Black Joke Set 14. Dulaman 15. Health to the Company

3:12 4:51 4:31 5:02 4:56 4:55 6:25 2:54 5:26 6:47 6:07 4:21 6:11 5:02 2:53

Press:

New Witch magazine
Storming Heaven is the second offering from Bay Area Celtic rock band Avalon Rising, a group long known for exciting arrangements of traditional pieces, as well as intense and enthralling original songs. Fans have been waiting several years for this CD, and it doesn't disappoint; the production values are splendid, providing a crisp, complexly layered sound. The song selections are varied, ranging from instrumentals to some heavily rock-influenced numbers, such as the album's most likely hit within the Pagan community, "Jack Daw," a song that includes
lines such as "Jack Daw went to the Maypole/With ribbons for the Spring/And maidens wrapped around him/As befits the Summer's King." A common complaint among fans of Celtic rock is that eventually everything can start to sound the same. Avalon Rising avoids this problem by taking advantaqe of the unique skills offered by its members, which include veterans of several other Celtic rock groups (among them Annwn and Phoenyx). Of particular note are Kristoph Klover's soaring vocals, Margaret Davis's harp and flute playing, and Cat Taylor's energetic, skillful fiddling. This is high-quality musicianship, and better still, it's high-quality music.

- Seanan McGuire, New Witch magazine

* Brand new review from Progressive Ears!

"...Meet your new arbiters of cool: Avalon Rising, the Bay Area's finest Celtic-prog band..."Avalon Rising plays bright, bouncy Celtic pop -- lotsa tunes about shires and maidens and chimney sweeps -- with a dark undercurrent of technically precise trickiness, as though the Jethro Tull dudes had been sneaking into rehearsals...The chops and the songwriting on the band's latest, Storming Heaven, are stellar indeed..."

-- Rob Harvila, Music Editor, East Bay Express

"...Bands like Avalon Rising are few and far between...Storming Heaven is a jewel, plain and simple..."Wonderful vocals by Margaret Davis and Kristoph Klover... This is a seriously talented band - and after 10 years and hundreds if not thousands of shows, they are a tightly knit group of friends. The interaction is seamless on every track, leading to a perfect album. And with 15 cuts, you're getting your money's worth! ...Avalon Rising plays a lot of festivals and was chosen as the band for the official Lord of the Rings fan club Oscar party in Hollywood - if you needed any more proof of how good they are, there you go...one of the year's best! Highly recommended."

-- Michael Sullivan, Editor-Publisher, Here and There Ezine

"They are loud, they work hard and they are GOOD!"
They rocked Pantheacon with a 2-hour concert - supreme musicianship from all, but especially Margaret Davis. She plays flute, recorder, harp like a demoness, and she sings!! How can a single person have so many talents!!

-- Richard Man, musician, fan

"Avalon Rising inject traditional balladry with a churning rhythm section and a few sprightly touches of good old prog rock to create a sound that's a mixture of Tubular Bells, Dead Can Dance and that song Pippin sings in the film version of Return of the King. ... Storming Heaven is hot off the presses and full of Celtic-jammy vim and vigor."

-- Sara Bir, North Bay Bohemian