The Bride Said No expands upon the rich sonic palette of Courting the Widow by integrating expansive symphonic arrangements with lyrical melancholy and proto-metal riffage, not to mention dashes of funk. “The album has some ’70s sounds and a little bit of ’80s in there as well, but it’s really contemporary and very much of the here and now,” Nad says. “I also continued with the [Genesis keyboardist] Tony Banks vibe I got with the ARP Pro Soloist [synthesizer], which I also used on ‘Carry Me Home’ from the previous album.”
      Establishing a solo identity after many years as ensemble specialist can be difficult in the progressive music arena, but vocalist/keyboardist Nad Sylvan is proving up to the challenge. Sylvan ups the ante with The Bride Said No (InsideOut Music), his second outing in a projected trilogy that follows the “vampirate” story conceptual thread launched in 2015’s Courting the Widow. (Sylvan hopes to have the third album finished and released by fall of 2018.)

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