Karnataka - Forgiven (2023)

Karnataka has evolved from its benign beginnings in 1998 as a classic British female fronted lead vocal, Neo-prog band into a platform of constant progression, with regularly alternating musicians as well as said new lead vocalists. The continuous (since day one) member is bassist, keyboardist, composer and arranger Ian Jones, who has kept steering the artistic wheel into the future. Rachel Jones, Lisa Fury, Anne-Marie Helder, Hayley Griffiths, and now Sartori have handled the vocal chores with considerable savoir faire, injecting a very high level of quality to the often-poor lead vocal department within the prog genre. Eight long years have passed since the previous album Secrets of Angels, which was a resounding success musically and it was therefore more than time for another chapter, especially in view of the fact that this release is a Covid baby, born out of forced introspective inspiration, and certainly a great amount of reflective patience went into this new recording and it shows.