 |
| |
| Progressive Rock CD Reviews |
| Track by Track Review
|
|
The Grand Design?
All kinds of sound effects and sound bites make up this cut. It’s less than a minute and a half long. |
|
Hello New Star!
The music that starts this has a great old school progressive rock texture. The percussion is almost tribal. The vocals are intriguing and more like Echolyn or Spock’s Beard, perhaps. The chorus is very catchy with an almost power pop sort of feeling to it. They take it through a number of changes and I can make out some Klaatu at times, but there’s a lot of Spock’s Beard in this mix, particularly the Neal Morse period of the band. |
|
Embrace
This fires out with a harder rocking, almost metal sound, but shifts towards Beard like prog before dropping to a piano only melody. Some other layers of sound are added, but the vocals come in with nearly just the piano for backing, in a ballad-like approach. It grows out to a mode more like the opening cut and this really does remind me a lot of Spock’s Beard. |
|
. .
While the basic concepts aren’t changed, this track is quite dramatic. It turns more metallic than most of the stuff we’ve heard on the set. It’s got a bit of Kansas to my ear, but mostly just the vocals. The balance between mellower and harder rocking sounds is cool. There’s a smoking hot guitar solo on this number. |
|
How It Works
Again, there are no huge changes here, but this is definitely a different song than anything we’ve heard before. There’s a killer heavy section. Of course, the term heavy might convey heavy metal, but it’s not metallic at all, in my opinion. They alternate heavier sounds with more mellow and some of the bass fills make me think a bit of Geddy Lee while parts of the arrangements call to mind Yes. This is actually one of the most dynamic pieces on show as they take it through a number of alterations and rearrange it this way and that. There is a killer acoustic guitar driven jam later that shows that acoustic doesn’t have to mean mellow. |
|
Simple
Less than a minute in length, this is all weird sound effects. |
|
Too Simple
Acoustic guitar leads this off intricately. The cut grows up from there, feeling like Spock’s Beard meets folk music. It becomes more rocking as it carries on, but in a very organic way, but it drops way down later to a cool flute and space rock based jam. They take it from there into a killer fast paced jam that’s part Kraftwerk, part space rock and all cool. Eventually this shifts to an ultra heavy, slow riff that some might call “metal.” However, as the saxophone starts to wail it is obvious that’s it’s more like jazz and Red era King Crimson. For my money, this cut is one of the strongest on the disc. |
|
All We Have
Mix Spock’s Beard with Jellyfish and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this song is like. It seems a little lackluster, but a lot of that is about the position following the powerhouse that is “Too Simple.” |
|
On My Own
Take a fast paced Yes arrangement and blend it with Starcastle. Then add a little bit of a raw garage band edge. You’ll find yourself close to the territory of this number. They take us through a number of interesting changes and this becomes another highlight of the disc as it gets very turbocharged in terms of intensity. It’s amazing how much they manage to pack into four and a half minutes. |
|
Moral Disgrace
To me there seems to be a big chunk of The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” in this cut. It’s got plenty of Spock’s Beard in the mix, too, though. They take it through a number of changes and the drop back to mellow motifs is quite cool. This is another dynamic and intriguing piece of music with nods to various prog rockers. The guitar solo is quite tasty, too. |
|
Wasted
A shorter track, this one stays fairly close to a ballad approach, but does power up a bit. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
|
|
© 2025 Music Street Journal
Site design and programming by Studio Fyra, Inc./Beetcafe.com |
