I have waited a great many years for an orchestral album by Tony… something LONG overdue from him in my opinion. Producing an album of orchestral music when you are so well established within another field of endeavours can be fraught with difficulties and pitfalls and many an artists reputation has suffered from accusations of pretentiousness and pomposity. No such problems here - methinks!

As Tony explains in the exclusive in the exclusive interview elsewhere in this edition of TWR; this is a project which he has long cherished and which has had a lengthy gestation period. The wait has been well worth it though. Here is a well crafted and thoroughly delightful album which will enthral fans old and new alike.

Opening with the evanescent beauty of Spring Tide… which shimmers and glides over a vast aural landscape; the album moves through many different moods and styles through which the unmistakable hand of Mr Banks can be seen.

Perhaps the darkest and most traditionally "Banksian" piece is the second track: Black Down which evokes the picturesque beauty of a local beauty spot in every bit as exquisite detail as any of the other masters of the English Pastoral tradition such as Vaughan Willliams and this piece resonates with an essential calmness and serenity which marks it out as a worthy continuance of that hallowed tradition.

The Gateway is another delight… by turns ethereal and whimsical with an essential nobility of spirit.

Dramatically charged, The Ram… moves through a whole range of moods and feelings breaking the essential tranquility of its predecessor and providing a great contrast in just about every way to the preceding pieces.

Earthlight once again is a piece possessed of great elegiac beauty and grace… with once again some delightful echoes of Tony's earlier work.

Neap Tide… flows with a serene majesty over a landscape so quintessentially English it could not have been written elsewhere. Graceful and unhurried.. the tide draws us to the album's concluding piece: The Spirit Of Gravity which has echoes of earlier themes recapitulated and resolved bringing the entire album to a completely satisfying resolution.

For a first effort at something of this scale and scope, Seven delivers some of Tony's most satisfying and deeply emotional work to date. With the orchestral repertoire crying out for new works of this calibre for the concert auditorium, I can see a bright future for this album as either a complete orchestral suite or as individual pieces. This album succeeds on both levels; each piece is a cohesive entity in its own right as well as bringing an inner strength to the suite as a whole - bravo, Tony a truly remarkable and satisfying effort!