Majestic Songs

The Jan 2010 issue of Prog-résiste magazine features an interview (in French) with Jeff Hamel of Majestic along with a review of Majestic’s Arrival CD. Prog-résiste is a belgian “Non Profit Making Association” having the aim to promote the Progressive Rock in Belgium, in other french-speaking countries and all around the world if possible.

Be sure to check out Prog-résiste at http://www.progresiste.com

The english translation of the interview conducted by Alex Willem is as follows:

Interview on 11/04/2009

To start, can you please present yourself shortly?

My name is Jeff Hamel and I am the musician primarily responsible for the music of Majestic. Majestic is a neo-symphonic prog recording project out of Minnesota, USA.

“Arrival” is your second album. Can you tell us the genesis of this album? What has been the creation process of it ?

Actually, Arrival is my third album release. My first was Descension and that was followed by String Theory. However, due to the label issues S.T. was not promoted the way it should have been. Fortunately, Mals Ltd picked up Descension and released it under their label.  Mals being a progressive rock and metal label really opened the door for Majestic.

In Oct 2008, I found an unknown vocalist Jessica Rasche looking for a band in our local area. I heard some samples she had done with some other musicians. Even though Jessica’s  music was quite different from Majestic I thought her voice would be a strong asset to the project. So I suggested collaboration on a track or two just to hear what the final product would sound like.  We put the samples out and the responses were overwhelmingly positive. It was quite clear that her voice fit perfectly with the Majestic sound.  Subsequently, I invited her to be the primary vocalist of Majestic and the Arrival recording sessions began.

Do you see an evolution between this album and the previous one ?

Most Definitely, Descension was a collection of smaller pieces of music written in 2006-2007 which was bordering progressive and just rock. Deservingly, it received only midgrade reviews. I have always been recording ideas down and descension was my first attempt at putting anything out there to the public.

My next attempt was String Theory. This was quite a bit more progressive in terms of being a concept CD. However, the songs were not as long due to limitations of label wanting me to keep the tracks less than 10 minutes long and be more like popular American rock.  String Theory was superior to Descension but the CD went into obscurity rather quickly from virtually no promotion.

When I began recording Arrival I decided to write something that I liked to hear and not worry about whether people would like it or buy it. I just wrote for myself and I have always enjoyed the longer epic sounding tracks. Also I have always had the desire to do something “bigger”. In addition, Jessica’s vocal talent opened up new doors for the music. Her vocals allowed me to go heavier than I had before. My vocals are passable on softer music but with Jessica handling the heavier riffs I felt the sky is the limit.

To the exception of the vocals (performed by Jessica Rasche), you play all the instruments (like Mike Oldfield…). Is it something you enjoy to play all instruments?

Very much. The guitar has always been my main instrument.  Playing all the instruments is like a double edge sword. The good part is that I have 100% control over the music and direction it takes with no arguments. The bad part is I have no one to bounce ideas off of when I get stuck on a part. Over all playing all the instruments has worked out and the good outweighs the bad.

The album starts with a long track and ends with another long track? This is very Rock Progressive. What do you think? Do you claim doing Prog music?

I rarely listen to anything except progressive music. I enjoy music that takes the listener places and lets them use their imagination.  I write music I enjoy listening to and Prog music involves more epic intricate tracks that you continue to get new things out of every time you listen. Arrival allowed me to write something that I as prog fan was able to enjoy.

What are the artists who influenced your work?

In no particular order, some of the bands that move me are Yes, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, Ayreon, Riverside, Genesis, Rush and Pink Floyd.

How do they influence your work?

I try to pick up bits and pieces from songs I like. If you break down a Majestic track you will find all these influences throughout the music. Although, I have never been into learning and playing other peoples music their influences will always be there.

Listening to your music, it reminded us (at Progresiste) the music of Saga, especially the track “wish”. Is this also an influence?

I will take that as a compliment.  Saga is a great band. Though I thought “wish” was more Steven Wilson’s No-Man influenced.

Is that kind of music popular in the US? Is it easy to tour to present it?

There are some great prog bands here in the states. Short of some festivals, progressive music is not as popular as it should be. There is no denying  Majestic has a much bigger following overseas.

What are the things you are happy about this album and what would you like to redo?

I am thrilled with the response the CD has received. I knew with Jessica’s voice we were creating something new and fresh, however with the mediocre reviews of past material I had no idea “Arrival” would be so widely accepted.

As a musician, I always hear things I think could have been done better or different. That being said, I am a strong believer that you make a song as well as you can at the time and then put a stake in the ground and move on.  I just take the mistakes and learn not to repeat them next time around.

What are your project for near future?

For about a year now I have been collaborating with Gregg Johns of Slychosis on a project called Proximal Distance. We are almost done recording and are looking to release around end of 2009 or early 2010. This CD will feature Jessica and I (Majestic) along with Gregg Johns, Todd Sears, and Jeremy Mitchell from Slychosis. We are really excited about this project.

What would you say to our reader to invite them to listen your music?

Majestic is relatively new on the prog scene and definitely worth checking out. If you are a fan of prog you won’t be disappointed because this album touches on the many different styles. Stop by our website at www.majesticsongs.com . There we have free downloadable music, reviews, and current updates on our projects.

Original Link

MAJESTIC – Arrival (****)
- Majestic is a musical project of USA citizen Jeff Hamel (guitar, keyboards and vocals). He started to play guitar when he was 14 years old, in The Eighties he was a member of prog metal band Osmium and in the Nineties he studied a few years recording technology in Detroit. In 2004 has passion for symphonic progrock to the foundation of Majestic, then he released the albums Descension (2007), String Theory (2008), Majestic Sampler 09 and Arrival (2009). I was not familiar with Majestic their music but after reading lots of praise about their latest effort, I asked Progwalhalla Hans to sent me Arrival in order to discover their music and to make a review.
- This very long CD (close to 80 minutes) opens with the 22 minutes composition Gray: first a dreamy intro with twanging electric guitar and pleasant vocals, then the music alternates between a fluent rhythm with bombastic keyboards, heavy guitar and a thunderous rhythm-section and a more mellow climate with wonderful female vocals. In between we can enjoy a blistering guitar solo. After a part with fine synthesizer flights, propulsive guitar riffs and ominous sounding keyboards, follows a mellow part featuring all sorts of sounds and soaring vocals. Then a great build-up, the music gradually turns into more lush and heavy, somewhere between gothic and prog metal with heavy guitar riffs and majestic organ. In the final part the music slows down but in the end it’s again bombastic with heavy work on guitar and keyboards. The next song Wish (almost 10 minutes) is an oasis of silence in comparison with the previous song: warm acoustic guitar with soaring vocals, then gradually the music slowly becomes more compelling and halfway we can enjoy an excellent, strongly build-up guitar solo with biting runs and sensational use of the wah-wah pedal. The third track Gilde (also close to 10 minutes) starts in a prog metal atmosphere, then a spacey interlude and a captivating build-up to fluent and sumptuous with spectacular work on guitar and keyboards. Finally the epic titletrack clocking …. 36 minutes! But despite this very long running time, Majestic succeeds to keep my attention, due to the many strong musical ideas and surprising twists and turns. After a spacey intro with subtle guitar work, a pleasant female voice joins, followed by a build-up to compelling and bombastic prog with emotional vocals and fiery wah-wah guitar. Then lots of shifting moods, breaks and great dynamics: prog metal, a slow rhythm with organ and slow drum beats, a hypnotizing guitar solo with fiery runs, a dreamy part with classical guitar, a blistering guitar solo with wah-wah, a compelling bombastic atmosphere delivering organ, vocals and a propulsive rhythm-section and finally a beautiful part with a moving guitar solo, accompanied by sequencers, very original!
- If you like harder-edged symphonic rock, Heavy Prog, prog metal or gothic rock, I am sure this album will delight you!

Rating: 4 of 5 Stars! [4 of 5 Stars!]

Original link

With Arrival, Jeff Hamel continues using the label majestic to pursuit his musical imaginary. This time around he mixes his Floydian reminiscences with a more modern and sometimes more metallic sound.
While his usage of the mechanized drumming may need further evolution and sharpness (it sounds too much inorganic), musically wise this is a well achieved album.

Comprised of only 4 tracks, one of them clocking the 36+ minute mark and other almost 23 minutes long, Arrival breaths progressive rock attitude and commitment all over, and not only on the length of the tracks.
The music, besides relating here and there to a Pink Floyd reminiscent sound, also seems to take some musing ideas from such contemporary bands as Ayreon (and everything Arjen Lucassen related), Porcupine Tree and some heavier (melodic prog-metal) bands (my friend Hugo Flores several projects comes to mind now and then). Jeff takes his time when exploring the ambiances he proposes, therein resulting such long tracks that, nevertheless and in the good spirit of prog rock, are full of changes in direction, dynamics, tempos and rhythms.
Playing with intensity, velocity and melody, Jeff has accomplished a strong and robust sound (with the aforementioned drum machine minor problem). He is perfectly capable of putting out a group of long yet consistent and never boring tracks. And if in the opening Gray he shows his heavier and more aggressive side, Jeff easily shifts to a softer and subtler sound in Wish. From there he swifts back to heavier pastures and then back again, playing with intensity while adjusting layers to the resulting sound.
The vocals are majorly provided by guest appearance Jessica Aashe, and they result very well, as her voice easily fits the music presented here, independently of its intensity and heaviness.

This is an album to be discovered by those who like the contemporary proposition of Floydian reminiscences applied in a heavier package, as hard progsters, prog-metallers and those who just like such outfits as Ayreon, Stream of Passion, Project Creation, Sonic Pulsar, Jupiter Society and other prog-with-a-step-in-metal bands will certainly find a lot of interesting stuff in this release. Not something to rival (at least yet) with the mentioned names, but interesting nevertheless.

Descension Rising is an off shoot of Majestic featuring Jeff Hamel and Jessica Rasche. Bringing in the talents of Chris Nathe and Jerry Swan to help fill the gap. The video is various clips taken from recent rehearsal sessions.  Hope you enjoy…

Fool – Descension Rising

Clover I – IV Available for Download

Recorded in Aug 2009, Clover is an epic collection of tracks consisting of 4 songs. We are offering this little EP for free via download. Fill out this form and we will email you a link to download this suite. The music is in mp3 format (320 kbs) and about 61 mb. It is recommended you have a high speed line to download.

Clover Download Form

We hope enjoy this Majestic offering.