Sharon Knight - Portals review

Year : 2016
Genre : Massively Fantasy-Driven Soft Rock
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Where to check it out: >here<

Buy it now

Festival Favorites Sharon Knight and Winter are internationally touring musicians in the mythic-Celtic vein. Their penchant for combining fierce and gutsy bravado with ethereal beauty, a hearty dose of fantastical lyrics, and an obvious love of storytelling has inspired their own style, “Neofolk Romantique”. This often sound less Celtic and more “Folktales that ran away with the Faeries at the turn of the century and took cover in an old trunk bound for the circus, which was then commandeered by pirates.” This suits them fine.

Portals is a mature, undeniable, artistically ripe release that channels the charms of massively fantasy-driven escapism/romanticism with genuine creative grace, originality and musical aptness amidts its premiere acumen. The intention to deliver top tier songcraft, remains an unrelenting staple throughout this intoxicatingly ornamented sonic journey, and this is the central reason that the disc worsk so well. Read on to know more.

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Underlined Passages - The Fantastic Quest review

Year : 2015
Genre : Soft Rock with a superb harmony fetisch
Label : Mint 400 Records
Origin : United States
Official site: > -  here - <

Baltimore based Underlined Passages is a group composed of individuals willing and able to render their respective creative potentials to that of premiere Underlined Passages frontman and mastermind Michael Nestor.

Nestor been instinctively studying and mastering the mere ethos of harmony the very day Stephen Hawking started to invent time itself, and this very notion is not one to take lightly, nor with any promise of a grain of salt. This spin is action-packed with an extremely keen sense of chordal passages that reflect not only excessive competence-levels at coming up with interesting harmonies, but, even better: the whole album is a luscious love letter to intricatly sculpted chordal domains, while the sung melodies on top are mere compliments rendered to them.

The resultant mixture is a highly optimal configuration of music, that works pretty much perfectly, and especially so if your ears still remember how to hear. If you ever wondered about this question, then the answer probably is "sorry: no, but do come again!", but, this is the perfect album to make sure. Read on to know more.

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The Steermen - High Tech Low Lifes review

Year : 2014
Genre : Soft Rock, Shoegaze
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : - > here - <

Chicago's Steermen bring you the ever-so-pertinent timelessness of a - logically - urbanistic sunset gloom, witnessed and addressed through inventively/creatively tormented sounds that are apt at revealing the almost obligatorily relentless morosity felt by a sentience who would desire true and relevant intimacy, but a city gets in a way, concealing the very next sentience feeling the same way, maybe, from 3 meters away from you - the presence is unbeknownst to your physical body, yet paradoxically you feel it 24/7, as you too, are it. Such is the design AND the ethos of the City and the album, - it does not have to be Chicago, either, though Chicago, I'd imagine, is the picture perfect candidate to crush your soul with a casual sunset in case you are in the receptive enough mood - as the LP reflects the urban isolation that secretly is felt by everyone at some time in their - haha - lifes. Read on to know more about the music.

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Five Townz - Mama Told Me Not To Come track review

The track "Mama Told Me Not To Come" summons a tasteful narrative coalition of Timothy Leary-era soft rock psychedelia and golden era Beatles, although I can image that there are sentient beings AND Beatles aficionados fervent enough to question the implication that the Beatles had anything else than a prolonged golden era. Not too hard to have JUST that when you and Ringo are on so much LSD that you need to maneuver him off the ceiling using butterfly catchers. Five Townz's music is re-invigorated retroid viscera, realized with particularly efficient vocal performances and highly tolerable glam rock affectations. They never go "Elton, you are embarrASSing yourself", while the lead singer is capable to belt out so convincing and powerful - well - melodic jells that enjoy instant approval from mid range master shouters like "teh" Butch Balich or the Peter Steele. '70s playful psychedelic viscera, realized with recent production standards. An immediate recommendation for your listening pleasure. Check out the band at their official Facebook here.

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Chaser Eight - At the 426 EP review

Year : 2014
Genre : Soft Rock / Synth Pop Crossover
Label : Independent
Official site : > - here - <

Chaser Eight seems and sounds like a duo - at least - of autonomous individuals, and I'm 100% sure that it features minimum 1 lady and 1 gentleman. I like the fact that the record is misleading. Because no one is sitting on the stairs on the cover. Finally, some legitimate originality and much welcomed spiritual grit. I mean - you sitting on a step of a brief stairway, giving morose face to a crimson sky, and all this on your album cover? Seriously? Based on the first track, you'd assume that Chaser Eight's female lead singer is not yet comfortable with her mixed voice register, but tries to use it/to explore it anyway - this always is very admirable. Later on, when you are about to articulate a silent covert moan, you realize that she was only doing this rendition of an intentionally super-repressed mixed voice delivery, to be kind, so the male singer has a chance to exist on the right channel of the mix. In reality, - AND, "out" of it - she could obliterate the whole build with her singing power. AND luckily!! By the second verse, when she finally showcases full throat power, - which, let's be honest, the only thing you've been waiting for - she comes across as very powerful and efficient. But listen to that "me" in the line "you and me" at the chorus - no one believes that, not even her. This is the charm of it, the male on the right channel accepting that he is in a musical position in which the female is holding back, so he can exist, too. Spiritual, baby! Read on to know more.

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The Yellow Dress - Faint Music Ordinary Light review

Year : 2013
Genre : Soft Rock with a Psychedelic tint
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

This review starts out with a snippet section quoted from the original press release, revealed in Italic.

San Francisco's The Yellow Dress will release their third and heavily-anticipated album, "Faint Music // Ordinary Light," in less than a month. Recorded and mixed, entirely analog, at John Vanderslice's Tiny Telephone Studios, produced by Ian Pellicci (Deerhoof, The Dodos) and mastered by Paul Oldham (Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Sonny and the Sunsets), the album features an 8-person line-up of San Francisco Bay Area musicians, plus guest vocals from several more, mostly from the underground DIY scene in San Francisco and Oakland. The Yellow Dress has been called a "supergroup" several times throughout its 6+ year lifespan, which is appropriate since every member has at least one other local project in which they perform. The band draws much inspiration from the local literary community and often finds themselves performing at events for folks such as McSweeney's and The Rumpus; the name of the album comes from the Robert Hass poem "Faint Music." Preorder digital and vinyl editions of the album from Bandcamp before the official release on January 4, 2014.

Read on to know more about the disc. 
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SleepingBabys - Idolize EP review

Year : 2013
Genre : Tarantino Surf Rock, Spaghetti Rock
Label : Independent
Origin : Australia
Official site : > - here - <

Armed with the seemingly perfect excuse to do so, today I was anti-inventive enough to deem a certain sub-set of '70s surf rock to be regarded as Tarantino Rock, or spaghetti rock, as renowned blood poet and rampant/evident foot fetishist Quentin Tarantino doubtless made an eloquent job letting you know the types of auditory stimuli he most enjoys sucking female toes on to. And what's not to like in the equation, correct? (Expect that it is not you doing the sucking, maybe? Corruption = something you left out of.)

SleepingBabys claim they have no idea what they sound like - no artist ever did, because every artist covertly hopes of being über-original - and it is my delightful obligation to inform relative consensus that they deliver the music the aforementioned film director would kill masses for, any minute of the day. This EP reflects solid command and ripe understanding of the pretty much timeless chemistry which necessarily and insatiably reveals itself once surf rock fascinations meet head on with spaghetti western sentiments, and, the lead singer lady of the duo really is doing a natural - which always is the hardest - job conveying the violent-love found in Tarantino's inner and outer vision. Rabid gunfire violence and black stockings are pairing up in the so smartly/timelessly noirish and comically sexist moments of the Pulp Fiction movie - and this set of emotional mood, as so willingly and unashamedly exhibited by this duo, continues to affect human psyches on the planet surface. Read on to know more about the "Quention Tarantion"!

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Natalie Jones - Now You Know review

Year : 2013
Genre : Soft Rock, Pop Crossover
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Natalie Jones' debut spin "Now You Know" is highlighted by a lush, adeptly channeled, emotional voice-presence skillfully orchestrated through 13 radio friendly pop/soft rock crossover declarations. The flow is melodically dynamic and pretty much masterfully - pun willfully absorbed - revealed when scrutinized from then angles of all the genre specific considerations of definition and obligatory instant pop power. The sound is punchy, yet never arrogant or intimidating, while the songcraft willfully submits to all the major - AND minor, too - culturally ingrained pop-affections without losing a face and the ethos of creative dignity in the process.

The disk weighs in at 59 minutes of melodic pop/soft rock stimuli, and never once falls into the false luxury of losing focus on the main actual attraction, which is to showcase Jones' considerable singing talent, exhibited on top of all the various sonic/harmonic domains of the most popular western scales and musical keys. Fear not! Or, fear only if you are a pop diva who frequents this site - this either is very bad or very good taste, madame - her natural timber elevates her above 99 of 100 recent pop divas, and the remaining one (logically) is her.

Granted, the chord progressions are polite and not at all experimentive in their intents and render no challenge to the boundaries of radio friendly music, nevertheless their inherent timeless charms are explored (AND exploited) thoroughly, toppled by the favorite vocal ornamentics of the profiling artist. The mere consideration of the unchained female singing voice is not the ONLY consideration though, not this time - Natalie Jones sounds to have a natural talent at spotting melodies that are truly worth giving attention to on top of the given bonfire tonalities. Read on to know more about this.

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Brian Larney - The Starting Line review

Year : 2013
Genre : Country, Soft Rock crossover
Origin : United States
Official site : - here -

With his debut LP, Brian Larney might indeed literally be at The Starting Line, yet this definitely is a start you want to render all your musical attention to. Larney has a ripe and competent command on the trademark melodic moods and harmonic structures you are most comfortable holding unto upon a country-centered listening session, combined though with a soulfully channeled steadiness exhibited in the most important aspect of it all : the plain good old songcrafting ability.

The album is extremely easy and pleasant to decode, as its sole purpose - obviously enough - is to entertain on a laid back, yet uncompromisingly exigent genre-specific comfort zone. Occupying this full-optimum position with a pretty much perfect understanding of the bread and butter mechanics of country music, Larney never ceases to imbue a tint of family friendly roadmusic-heft into the respective builds with the utilization of soberly tamed and eloquently presented soft rock affections. Rare is the time when the miserable music critic has no other action left to him than to nod a head in unconditional approval, yet such is the case right now, as the record contains crystal clear musical thought, realized through elements that I personally would not bother looking for flaws in with a poker face worth calling one attached. Read on to know more.

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Scan Hopper - Scan Hopper review

Year : 2009
Genre : Psychedelic Soft Rock
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

With its 2009 debut release, Scan Hopper showcases its profound fascination with the White Rabbit in the respective contexts of even milder-, yet not less interesting psy-rock rhetorics the second disc is testament of. This initial tendency is once again - such is the nature of retrospect - traded in for a more reckless narrative from time to time, yet, oddly enough, there are occasions by which the band wraps a seemingly perfectly good idea up in 2 minutes or less - as is the case, I feel, with track number 4, called "Notes for the Face (Plumage Rock)", for example. There are numerous other instances on the debut that seems to solidify this impression, and I will elaborate on it.

Despite the two years that separate the two contributions in the timeline of the reality fabric - (DON'T even) imagine the chaos that would ensue were you'd have to listen to ALL songs of the cosmos at once - the narrative similarities in the components of this double barreled psychedelic delicacy are notable and even welcomed. Read on to know more about this.

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Scan Hopper - Scan Hopper 2 review

Year : 2011
Genre : Soft Rock with a Chillout and Psychedelic tendency
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

There is something wildly authentic, impertinently original and nihilistically rebellious about if and when you name your second self titled album with a numeric indication of its sequential nature, and this exactly is what Austin based ensemble Scan Hopper did with their 2011 second full length Scan Hopper 2. The music, as noted on the group's BandCamp site, is optimized rather for optimum enjoyment, as opposed of being optimized for maximum loudness paua'. The claim is well supported by the perpetuated rendition of the soulfully realized space/psychedelic/soft/chillout rock you will find on this declaration. The content occupies a narrative musical space between Pink Floyd and the rock traditions of late '60s and early '70s, though veterans claim that if you remember the '60s, you weren't even there. Read on to know more about the disc.

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Phil Stoodley - No Surprise review

Year : 2013
Genre : Pop, Soft Rock
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

The guy under the classy hat is Phil Stoodley, and his niche of expertise is massively soft rock influenced roadway pop, reflected through a nice, diverse variety of modal tints and emotional demeanors. The music, though polite throughout, reveals a keen affection towards exquisite harmonic passages that serve as trusty backdrops for an adept mixed voice register reminiscent of the overall CLEAN timber of Brian Adams, minus the semi-artificial grit of said notability with which he sounds to garner undeniable emotional effect with. Stoodley is more natural, and is comfortable with showing it. Read on to know more about his full length sonic declaration, "No Surprise".

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Rog & Glenn - Close the Club review

Year : 2013
Genre : Classic Soft Rock with Experimental tendencies
Label : Independent
Origin : United States

Official site : > - here - <

Rog & Glenn is a duo armed with all the pro(fessional) tools required to realize their radical, yet exigent vision of musical extremes. The cultivation of sonic fun, fortunately, is the most important goal of this healthily sized delivery, and the set of mature compositions are not any more alien to the overall flow than an array of equally resident sonic environments specifically emerging as successful testaments of a love for old school classic rock - now orchestrated though to the instruments of icy synth pop with whimsical experimental leanings under its belt. In case that the intersection of classic rock and rampant synth pop experimentation sounds contradictory to you, then welcome to the club which is about to be closed down - a nice marketing strategy, if you ask me. And the related conclusion could not be simpler, either : you better start to party like there is no tomorrow. Read on to know more about the disc.

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Bud Buckley/BudaRest - FOUR: Crying Out Loud review

Year : 2012
Genre : Acoustic Soft Rock / Bonfire
Label : BuBu Records, META-MUSIC
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Bud Buckley and Jax Resto are BudaRest, a multitalented songwriting/performing duo transplanted from New York to southwest Florida. Jax has been a performer all of her life from her days in school to her college years majoring in dance performance at Queens College. This led to her years with Ringling Brothers Circus as a dancer and as an aerialist. Following her circus career, Jax became a wife and mother, a rock drummer, a song writer and a novelist. She is still very active in all of these roles. Her band Kore played at the NY Mamapalooza festival in 2010. A Year later she formed Female Band Invasaion (FBI)

Bud performed all his life in a quite different arena. He was a multi award winning journalist/PR director with the teachers’ union in New York while at the same time teaching. The writing kept him in the eye of teachers across the nation and the teaching put him on stage everyday for a tough and demanding audience. They demanded attention and they demanded he play his guitar and sing while teaching all the elementary school subjects. Bud eventually studied fingerstyle guitar with well known Hudson Valley guitarist, singer songwriter and music educator Helen Avakian. He also studied voice with successful pop star Leslie Ritter of the Amy and Leslie duo. He as recorded four CDs, three produced by award winning songwriter Helen Avakian in Woodstock, NY with well seasoned studio pros like Scott Petito, Deni Bonet, Ross Rice, Dan Hickey and others. He is consistently highly rated by Reverbnation and is their number one singer/songwriter in all of western Florida.

Together, Jax and Bud form the songwriting/recording team of BudaRest, and have discovered that a pace of a song a week is something they can do and have done. At that pace, however, they have to slow down and save time for arranging and recording. A full collection of songs is in the making for release later this year. And probably every year.

Many of these songs will find their way into eBook novels penned by Jax. Music video production is also high on their project schedule.

Read on to gain an insight of a set of personal percepts regarding the disc, or don't.

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Souljunky - I Found Your Dream review

Year : 2012
Genre : Melodic Rock, Soft Rock, Disco
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Chigaco based Souljunky brings exceptionally smart and eloquently shaped melodic soft rock, radiating a vibe that has full throttle capacity to convey the emotional disposition of the highest peaks of a laid back, slick retroid character. Think of the tremendous Scarface soundtrack, and embed a bit - JUST a bit - of The Cure, the golden era of disco, a form of Bee-Gees without the high pitch head voice singing into it, and spice the resultant mix with a keen understanding of how to construct memorable choruses of dignity and harmonic elegance Aerosmith style. This isn't all yet : I personally am cosmically horrified by the music of U2 and I don't like it (that much [at all]), yet, this particular formation manages to convey the ethos of U2, too - SIC! - via their more mysterious and dainty contributions. Read on to know more about this Souljunky LP.

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Katrin the Thrill - Evil Eye Charm review

Year : 2012
Genre : Psychedelic, Dark Soft Rock, Soft Rock
Label : Independent
Origin : Greece
Official site : > - here - <

Despite a resilient, young body and the spiritual experience of 1 000 000 years - give or take - contained in it, Greece's Katrin the Thrill is an established presence of entertainment in her home country, while she and her former (?) associates were as close to making a record deal as it is humanly possible on a land Circe reigns at with a soul intact. Not surprisingly : Katrin the Thrill is a highly talented sonic/vocal consortium who radiates a darkened variant of Grace Slick + a tint of Sheryl Crow on top of musical themes and thought-fields that make early Nina Hagen and anytime-Peter Steele content individuals. The aforementioned lamentations are covering about the third of the disc. The major part of it has massive psychedelic leanings. Did you notice the infinite amount of invisible white rabbits on the cover art yet? No? Look harder! Never seen someone who has fully disappeared. Read on to know more about the much anticipated Evil Eye Charm LP.

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Anathema - Weather Systems review

Year : 2012
Genre : Walt Disney Lion King Rock
Label : KSCope (EU) The End Records (US)
Origin : United Kingdom
Rating : 3.0 / 10

Buy it now

[This is a redirect for the original variant of the very same text. Read the original variant with comments here.]

Anathema's latest sounds to be the direct spiritual continuation of 2010's We're Here Because We're Here. I want to tell you right off the bat that the record, in my opinion is highly annoying and contains perplexingly narcissistic music. Anathema seems to have constructed an in-house song generator that is capable to produce smarmy songs, exclusively, as every single piece on this 55 minute affair exhibits the same premiere core characteristics and compositional tactics. I will get into those traits with ruthless efficiency later on. The disc shows constant preoccupation with the establishment of compulsive discomfort-elimination. This Anathema record is here to make you feel OH!, so special, you cosmic schmuck. Luckily, the cosmic schmuck who is writing this, warns you about this dangerous fact. Listen to this music, but know that it is a fragile lie and is designed to make you feel : - surprise! - ssssssssssssssspecial. But "you" are not special, "you" are "only" the expression of an unrelenting process beside an infinite number of other ones, and only this process that gives you the capacity to delude yourself into such ridiculous notions, IS special. It is consciousness medium, looking for lower entropy states. As for Anathema, they are looking for money for assuaging your fears. (Which is the same thing in a physical universe, funnily enough.)


In Anathema's domain, the only bird is the swan and the three colors that are most fervently encouraged to be used by everyone are blue and white and green. Your wasp is not allowed. Boosh! Boosh! Yellow, black, evil, stingy, evil! Boosh! Boosh! This is relentless Nazi music in the sense that it is arrogant enough to assume that the listener is retarded enough to not be aware of the fact the she/he is being fed the same daaaaayuuuumn trick for the 32423423rd time. This is Nazi music because it wants everything to be OH!, so peaceful and OH!, so eloquently and pretty much disgustingly and homogeneously beautiful. Like those posters with the dolphins and the naked ladies and the sunrise from the early '90s. Your receptors are in a constant harassment to submit to the limited/fabricated toy-beauty the songs actually reflect. Their capacity to entertain is vastly constrained by a self-congratulatory artistic behavior and related techniques that the music is forced to vomit out sugar-overdose accessibility for. This is an attempt to commit the slaughter of beautiful music. I adore beautiful music, I "only" demand it to be made from heart to heart, as this Cynic release sounds to me as. This is not the case at all with this baby, designed to sell good in the family friendly section of the record store, right next to Disney's Lion King. You are expected to be affected and be satisfied by very cheap and predictable patterns and methodologies. Read on to find out more about this vastly predictable pink plush toy music that secretly sucks immense demonic alligator dick in putrid anxiety-hell when you are not watching.

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WORLD5 - Global Experience review

Year : 2012
Genre : Soft Rock with a Tropical and Smooth Jazz flavor,
the 111% Scarface soundtrack
Label : Independent
Origin : various, see text below
Official site > - here - <

Buy it now

This review - as you will very soon see - starts out with a quotation section taken from the official site of reviewed ensemble.

Quote from the Bio of the official site :


"WORLD5 coalesced around the idea that music can transcend distance. The five members had all played together in various bands in the U.S. and Europe. But that was then. Today, they live on three difference continents spanning 19 time zones from the U.S. to Australia. Yet distance was no barrier to their creativity and shared sense of musical purpose.  Thanks to the power of home digital recording, each member recorded his part in the comfort of his own home.

Sure, it eliminated the intimacy of playing in the same room. But it also freed them from thetraditional stresses of recording. No scary red recording lights to rattle their nerves. No worrying about paying for recording studio time. No plates of unappetizing cold cuts moldering in the control room. That didn’t mean they didn’t talk.There were weekly chats on Skype and a steady flow of email to hone the vision of each song. And the occasional midnight phone call to hammer home an important point.

Then the final tracks were shipped to Randy Miller the wunderkind producer in Houston, Texas, where he tweaked and assembled them into the songs on this album that you’re listening to. The next step? Hit the same stage at the same time in the same city and play the songs together!"

Sounds good? Let's find it out!

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Mr. Jitters - Multiplicity EP review

Year : 2012
Genre : Soft rock with massive psychedelic leanings
Label : Independet
Origin : United States
Official site  : > - here - <

Dylan Rowe, former bassist of The Matches is the premier mastermind behind the Mr. Jitters project and its Multiplicity EP, a five track soft rock affair with immense psychedelic influences. The music on this disc is a rather interesting "bird" to relate to, - not so with the cover art, it is a human chin upside down with eyes painted on it - and here are the reasons for it : I personally feel the album peaks in super-strongly with the track called "The Road", a beautifully realized-, muscular, elegant soft rock piece with an easy listening anatomy, soaked in top of the food chain acoustic instrumentation. Think of Stone Sour's tender bonfire-compatible deliveries, and you will have an idea of what to expect. As soon as your inner senses are calibrated to the suggested kind of tame soft rock emotional warfare though, prepare to reshape those expectations until they show no similarities to their originators, and read on to find out why.


The other two contributions that are available as the two additional tracks to constitute the effective track palette this review is reliant upon, are less easily decipherable pieces, and it might be so that they refrain from seeking immediate appeal by conscious intent. "Hooked on you" and "Be Alright" both sound to me as deeply personal-, self-reflective circus/clown music pieces with a profoundly psychedelic character, but think "clowny-psychedelic", not "spaced-out-psychedelic." If you have a clown phobia, this release exactly is the last you want to surprise yourself with, because IT has the vibe you are horrified of. Indeed, the EP uses an LSD stamp as the flying carpet, metaphorically speaking. The realization of these two tracks are similarly quite exigent, yet the style they seek to resonate - quite efficiently - reigns beyond the confines of the comfortably expectable. This, of course, is neither an automatic hindrance, nor benefit to the fray. Mr. Jitters' Multiplicity EP has pretty good chances at affecting and leading you towards either instant appreciation, or, into instant bewilderment. Dislike is a mis-reaction, as the music is well made. Do not forget that this review is based on three tracks out of the sum total of five found on the entire album. If you visit Mr. Jitters on Facebook, you will be rewarded by various content-bonuses for a Like, and you can catch the psychedelic soft rock enterprise on tour, as well.

Check out Mr. Jitters on Facebook.
Check out the tour dates, supported by the Foxy Shamaz and Maniac ensembles.

GyZ at Bandcamp.

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Nick Duane - Before The Storm review

Year : 2012
Genre : Ambient Soft Rock / Synthpop / Atmospheric
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Nick Duane comes forth with a release armed with a rather unorthodox and brave character, considering the abundant directions the delivery is fervent, persistent and efficient at exploring. The most frequently applied pace of the flow shows keen interest in delivering ornamented still-life music AND delivering much of it, yet the one thing that utterly and completely saves this spin from any kind or promise of motionlessness in a valiant and natural manner, is the simple and precious fact that Nick Duane sounds to be serious about this style-, about this shape of music. The richly detailed harmonic and ornamental fabrics oftentimes yield results that are pretty delicious to be immersed in when things looking synthpop, - Yello's Boris Blank would be happy to hear those moments - and the other key interest the disc is enthusiastic to go after, is the soft rock side of David Bowie. Sometimes, the cover art of an album is a superb representation of the "daaaaayuuuummmn" music, and, thank God & Co., such is the case with this Nick Duane contribution, as well. Read on to find out more about the premiere mechanics of this rather strong package of high quality-, morose-playful rainmusic.


Despite its restrained and gloomy arch-character of caressing, deep vibrations, Before The Storm is hasty and efficient to draw a picture of what is to be found on the record later on, right throughout the opening track. This particular entry contains pretty much all the key elements the release excels at as a full listening experience : as just hinted previously, the core of the statement as a full listen, sounds to be an exigent take on the David Bowian morose/gloomy soft rock rhetorics. The compositions are honest and admirably faithful to the shores of the constant feeling of being JUST one step away from full blown depression that already has been made sour peace with - this is the beauty and the danger of this music, and both ingredients ARE necessary for music worth listening to in this particular register.

The lyrical pieces of the full length are balanced well via a reoccurring strategy to offer instrumental interludes amidst the majority of individual song-pairs. The tracks show autonomous tendency to project different kinds of eloquent lights to the favorite subject matter of rainy day highway-depression : "G-Whizz" is a Southern ZZ Top piece, the next one, "When We Dream" once again channels Bowie, but adds top of the heat mid-, and high frequency synthpop-ornamentics to compliment the elegant anatomy of the song. The next track, "Beneath the Surface", is an equally caressing and thrilling ambient trip that I personally think is a superb narrative peak moment to signify the middle grounds of the spin. Exquisite, fluidic harmonic structures entertain the ears in a successful attempt to support legit David Bowie singing, narrating a tame spiritual rant : I have nothing but praise for this song, it easily is one of the most significant ambient pieces I have heard in years.

As noted previously, following the middle grounds, the album is yet to hit its more intense side : Rain On Sunday is not YET that, nor is the consecutive installment, but the rabid section kicks off with robust psycho-electro-pop-power with track number 9, "Tightrope" : this sounds like intense "punk-pop" with the promise of going crazy and utterly compromised at the end of the song. Mix Depeche Mode with ZZ Top and a cybernetic mindhack and you have this vibe. Quite delicious!

"Blabber Mouth" is another specialty in the flow of predominant patterns. The song reeks the golden era of house music, when the idea "simply was" to include as many sonic layers in a track as it is humanly / alienly possible without harming the fabric itself, and Nick Duane does a tremendous job herein. I have no doubt whatsoever that this track was never intended to be a song at all, it "just happened to end up as one" during fiddling around with various electronic instruments in the production environment.

The record has a healthy dosages of surprises up its sleeves yet, among these, titular track "Before The Storm" comes to mind. Strangely enough, this "U2-meets Bowie" declaration sounds to convey menace by its mere production values! Because it does not sound "right", yet it does not even SEEKS to sound right, in my opinion. After all, it is being played while there is a hurricane on its way to the place where the music is resonated from, so the mere shores of sky-hell are affecting the music. "Just" logic. In this regard, the song is a superb accomplishment, fulfilling a function that is very rare to see - SIC! - in music.

The album is the perfect soundtrack for a rainy highway. I seriously would pick this on 6 occasions out of 5 times right now for any rainy day highway session. Preferably as the driver. The disc also conveys a sense of X Files science fiction, in my opinion, revealed with soberly limited high frequency sonic entities that cleverly refrain from intimidation, and instead are out to invite you into a risk free cosmos-trance. Watch raindrops draw random (?) fractals on the car window in the morning supported by this music to get a spiritual boost. Track number 2, "No Wages", takes you into this Zone pretty efficiently, - think of Blade Runner meets X Files - and this is not the only occasion you will be immersed in this feeling during the spin. Once again, a rather tight and robust - 55 minutes - atmospheric ambient soft rock album with a whole lot of quality stimuli to soak some ears into. Highly recommended.

GyZ at Bandcamp.

If you want, check out my music

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Buy me beer. Read more!