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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

41Point9

Still Looking for Answers

Review by Gary Hill

This is modern progressive rock with a real leaning on the guitar end of the spectrum. Still, at other times different instruments take control. It’s good music that’s a little hard to pin down at times. It will certainly appeal more to neo-prog fans than to those tied to the classic progressive rock style, but there should be moments that work well for the purists, too.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2011  Volume 5 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Track by Track Review
The Bullet's In The Barrel

Bits of hard rock are combined with sound bites and keyboard elements as this opens. It grows out to more of an AOR related jam from there with a killer guitar solo. It’s dropped to a more stripped down approach for the vocals, but the proggier elements emerge as the arrangement gets padded out again after the verse. Then we get a pop rock section with a hook that feels out of the 1980s before it gets more meaty again. They take it through a number of changes in an intriguing arrangement. At times this is more straightforward rock and at other points more proggy.

Living In Hard Times
Keyboards and seriously proggy elements open this and the cut grows with those things working through various changes. It drops way down to a bass driven arrangement from there. Eventually it works out to a more stripped back modern progressive rock arrangement and it grows outward from there. This is essentially a melodic progressive rock track.
Building Blocks
This powers in with a killer hard edge progressive rock riff. There are hints of Eastern sounds to be heard here. It’s a screaming hot riff that drives this and this is one of the highlights of the set. The vocal arrangement is deceptively catchy and this thing just plain rocks.
The Feather
This one alternates between melodic modern progressive rock and some harder edged versions of that sound. It’s got a cool vocal arrangement and some great guitar soloing. It’s deceptively accessible and yet quite complex at the same time.
One In A Bar
Perhaps this only barely qualifies as progressive rock. It’s certainly melodic and creative modern rock, but it’s closer to the type of prog a number of ambient modern prog outfits create. There is a cool string section mid-track, though. It does become more aligned with traditional progressive rock as it continues.
Surface Tension
A cool bass solo starts this one off. It builds out into something close to fusion merged with Joe Satriani-like music. There’s a killer bass solo around the three and a half minute mark that takes it into new directions. There’s an almost symphonic element later. A couple minutes later another bass solo brings it into almost heavy metal territory as it screams forward.
Promise The Moon
Piano leads this out in a pretty and rather intricate fashion that’s almost classical. Vocals come over the top of that arrangement as this continues. After a while it works out to melodic progressive rock that moves along nicely. Symphonic elements emerge later as this becomes more ballad-like.
Still Looking For The Answers
The title track starts with a cool bass driven jam. They take it out from there in a rather atmospheric modern progressive rock jam that’s quite tasty. There’s a killer guitar solo on this piece, too as it gets into more rocking territory later. It drops to just bass to end.
The Torch
Acoustic guitar brings this in with an almost folk music approach. It becomes a mellow rock tune with bits of folk and jazz built into it.
 
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