Well, just looking at the artwork of PERICARDIUM’s latest release entitled “Salutary,” it doesn’t take long to figure out that these guys come from the San Francisco bay area. With its artistic use of bland colors (ala some GRATEFUL DEAD cover art) and an overall “weird” concept and imagery, it also won’t take you long to figure out that PERICARDIUM is not your typical band either.

This was a bit of a weird one for me. Admittedly I am not a progressive fan and I almost ended up tossing this up on my shelf never to be heard or seen from again. But I really hate to do that unless it’s just complete shit! After all, the artist or a member of their management or promotions team did take the time to send this out to me so I try and at least give everything a chance and although progressive fans may be able to get more out of this than I do, I still found PERICARDIUM’s “Salutary” rather enjoyable.

Yes, it is progressive but what I like about it is that it isn’t your “typical” progressive sound. While the arrangements seem somewhat disjointed to me at times (not unlike those of GENESIS, YES or Peter Gabriel when they decide to go down their “artistic” paths), what I did enjoy was the rather eclectic array of musical styles and influences as elements of classic rock, jazz, folk, new age, and even power metal are all easily detected.

Another thing I have to mention is that these guys really know their way around their instruments. Just listen to the guitar work by Mike Black on “A Hymn For Doves To The Rhythm Of Hawks.” This is one of the heavier tunes on the CD and contains some really nice guitar riffs and solos while still maintaining that whole progressive ambience reminding me a bit of the progressive/ alternative band SHUDDER TO THINK. Lead vocalist Sean E. Sullivan does a great job as well with a voice that sounds eerily familiar at times to that of Jon Anderson (YES). This is extremely apparent on the open track “Salutary,” “The Mist of May” and just about anywhere else he opens his mouth throughout the CD.

Despite Sullivan’s more than sufficient vocals, the one track that I really love is an instrumental called “Ecliptic Corridor.” Honestly, I’m usually not a huge instrumental fan either, but something about the haunting melody along with some extremely well executed guitar work really grabbed me and reminds me a bit of some of Joe Satriani’s compositions on “Flying In A Blue Dream.”

Would I ever listen to this CD again? Well, I don’t think I’d ever pop it into my car stereo and go cruising with it but it definitely caught my attention enough to give it more than a few spins while I’m sitting at home relaxing in the future. As I said, progressive fans may get a lot more out of this than I did but being that I “did” at least get some of it, I feel totally confident in recommending it to any fan of this genre.