Robb & Pott Once Upon the Wings Review by Gary Hill
Here is a band that's sort of a spin off on the band Space Invaders and also Third Ear Experience. On part of this duo is from Space Invaders and the other is Robbi Robb of Third Ear Experience. As one would guess from those connections, this lands in space rock. Space Invaders favors instrumental music, though. Only one song here is instrumental. This is psychedelically tinged space rock that's quite cool.
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2016 Volume 5 at lulu.com/strangesound.
Track by Track Review
Flesh 'n Steel
The opening weirdness on this makes me think of the original Cybermen from "Doctor Who." That fits with the title, though. The cut powers out into a driving kind of hard edged space rock from as the vocals join. This has a lot of psychedelia and plenty of "cool." The instrumental section is full on space rock with plenty of pure prog in the mix.
Grass More trippy sounds are the idea here. This is space rock for sure with a lot of psychedelia in the mix. Again the instrumental stuff takes it even spacier. There are mostly spoken female vocals that come over top as this segment drives forward. There really is some serious magic incorporated on this portion. It eventually works back out into the song proper after a while.
Prophecy #1 At nearly 17 minutes in length, this is the epic of the set. It starts with trippy space rock and builds out gradually from there. This jam gets pretty involved. As the best space music, nothing changes quickly or jarringly. It's all about the organic, gradual shifts and changes. It really does become very intense, though. It's a real tribute that it doesn't feel as long as it is, given that it's sans vocals.
Looney Toon Combining heavy metal with Hawkwind like space and some other weirdness, this is odd, but strangely compelling. There is some really crunchy stuff on this thing. There is definitely a lot of Hawkwind built into this thing.
Space Ear This is a straightforward cut. It's another that feels a lot like Hawkwind. In fact, that's more true of this cut than any other on the disc. This is a compelling way to end the disc.
