The most obvious reference here is to David Bowie. Certainly many of the vocals call to mind Bowie. So does a lot of the music, though. Overall, though, this is much more progressive rock oriented. This is great stuff start to finish. Then again, I love Bowie and I love prog.
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Track by Track Review
On (Intro)
This introductory piece is melodic and rather ethereal. In some ways it makes me think of Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” just a bit.
Live To Work To Live In a lot of ways this makes me think of David Bowie. It’s proggy, though. Yet, it’s also quite dark. It’s moody and great stuff.
Disposable The vocals again call to mind Bowie, but the song is more complex. It’s got some pretty heavy moments and is more purely progressive rock oriented. Mind you, it’s newer prog and there are elements of new wave and metal built into it, too.
Change In a lot of ways this song really sounds like Bowie – not just the vocals. Sure, it’s more proggy, but still, it would be easy to imagine this as a long lost early Bowie tune. I love the keyboard elements here.
Trendy Girl There is a lot of space rock built into the start of this. Then it works out to a more mainstream rocker from there. I don’t really hear a lot of Bowie on this. I don’t really hear a lot of progressive rock here, either. The guitar solo is particularly tasty, and the whole cut rocks. I just don’t know if it’s prog.
Deafening The powerhouse opening section is very much progressive rock. It works from there to a mellow movement that is again quite like Bowie. The powered up sections on this are more pure prog. The keyboard textures on the later mellow moments bring the progressive rock to play, too.
Crackpot We’re definitely back into Bowie territory in terms of the vocals. The music, though, is pretty complex and quite proggy. This is great stuff really. It might be my favorite piece on the disc. It has a lot of range and some great musical moments.
Suggestions Dark and complex, this is a powerful progressive rock jam. Yes, the vocals at times call to mind Bowie, but in some ways this feels to me like a more metallic version of some of Genesis’ old theatrical stuff. It has a great balance between mellow music and harder rocking moments.
Sheeple The melodies and magic built into this make it one of the best songs here. In a lot of ways it makes me think of Pink Floyd. It rocks out like crazy, but in a very dramatic progressive rock manner. The vocal arrangement and musical arrangement are both top notch.
Off (Outro) This closing instrumental starts mellow and intricate. After it builds on that concept for a time it bursts out into noisy space rock to take it the rest of the way.
