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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Ian Narcisi

The Story of Blue: Introduction

Review by Gary Hill

I pretty much always like anything from Ian Narcisi. That said, I think this might be his best release. Combining progressive rock, psychedelia and space rock, this is extremely strong. You might hear things as diverse as Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Klaatu, fusion  and even some funk in the mix here. This is a strong set start to finish.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2015  Volume 3 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Track by Track Review
Blue Born

This instrumental is melodic and powerful. It has elements of classic progressive rock, fusion and space music. It’s a great way to start the set in style.

Welcome
Coming out of the previous number, this turns to a rather bouncy, electronic based prog sound for the first vocals. There’s a rather funky bass line that runs in after that. It continues to evolve for the next set of vocals. There’s a great prog jam at the end that turns noisy late.
Detached
Noisy and a bit strange, this instrumental is also space rock. It’s rather cool, as well.
Onward

This is an unusual, but very effective piece. It has a lot of psychedelia built into it. In many ways it seems to combine Beatles like psychedelic music with space and more. This is trippy and quite cool.

Left Behind
The same basic blend of sounds as in the last song is heard here. This is more mainstream and accessible, though. It’s no less tasty. The harder rocking movement later makes me think of Klaatu a bit. There is some great melodic guitar soloing later, too. This is a fun number in so many ways. A short keyboard section ends this.
Transcendence
This instrumental is classy. It’s guitar dominated, but quite proggy. It has a lot of fusion in the mix, too. There is a bit of Indian singing at the end.
Inward
The singing from the previous one starts this. Then keyboard sounds take over. Trippy, slide guitar, making me think of early Pink Floyd, joins after a while. This really does have that kind of Floydian psychelic element going on as it continues. As this instrumental (other than those Indian vocals at the start) continues, it starts to intensify. It gets more layers of sound later, too. Percussion takes control late. It’s joined by chanting and then a spoken section takes it to the end.
 
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