After a sporadically good but rather lengthy album, Colorado's Vee Device now see fit to embark on the dreaded concept album. Based on Isaac Babel, a Russian author who passed away in 1940, it's a labour of love from the main Vee Device songwriter, simply known as Vee. Even more ambitious is that 'And Quiet Flows The Dawn' is the first in a trilogy of albums with the musicians playing cast members for, if you will, an imaginary play.

Yet despite these new ideas, much like their first album, the music is essentially folk but not as we know it as songs regularly meander in different directions. The first track alone seems to be more like a suite as it takes on a violin solo as well as what seems like at least three starkly different songs within it. More cohesive are 'Desecration Of The Hives' and 'Dances Sacred And Profane' where the acoustic instruments and Vee's voice exude the kind of warmth, which has always been at the core of Vee Device's best music. Naturally, it can be an uneven listening experience but Vee Device seem to have the questing spirit and desire to experiment rather like the younger Mike Oldfield.