\nIce Cycles<\/i> hit me like a weakly thrown snowball. The impact
\nI need from my rock just wasn’t there. Lots of fluff and powder,
\nbut the explosion never blew my brain out of skull. There are great
\nmoments – mainly because you can’t go wrong with Ty Tabor’s guitar
\nbrilliance (King’s X), the devastating multi-timbral attack of
\nkeyboardist Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater), bassist John Myung
\n(Dream Theater), and drummer extraordinaire Rod Morgenstein (of the
\nDixie Dregs, and…ahem…Winger).
\nIce Cycles<\/i> simply lacks the solidity and sheer sonic candy
\nof Platypus’ first album,
\nWhen Pus Comes To Shove<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Beginning with the end, the problem glares on the album’s
\nclosing piece, “Partial To The Bean (a tragic american quintogy).”
\nAfter one barn-burning instrumental and a host of solid songs that
\ncompose the bulk of
\nIce Cycles<\/i>, this paint-by-numbers prog rock romp goes
\nabsolutely nowhere. Frankly, it bores the shit out of me. If you’re
\ngoing to do a seven part rock suite in the last year of the 20th
\ncentury it better be transcendent! Instead this sucks ass,
\nmeandering through riffs that would be appropriate background music
\nfor SportsCenter baseball scores.<\/p>\n
Fortunately the rest of the album is quite listenable. “I Need
\nYou” qualifies as the song that should be on the radio. It has some
\nJane’s Addiction in the intro and as a whole is well put together.
\nI think the band is too good for FM though – this song’s competence
\nmight embarrass the little boys who play rock stars today.<\/p>\n
Platypus is a “supergroup.” But considering the overall
\nanonymity of everyone in the band, I’m not sure Platypus lives up
\nto the supergroup moniker, or would want to. I do know Rod
\nMorgenstein drummed for Winger and that’s pretty thuper if you ask
\nme.<\/p>\n
“The Tower” is a groovy, 70s tinged mid-tempo mother. The lyrics
\nseem cool, and the song reminds me of antique-proggers Kansas.
\nMorgenstein rips out beautiful bass drum kicks during the chorus
\nand reaffirms his position as master blaster. Along the same tempo
\nis “Oh God.” “Oh God” opens with a deeply melancholy keyboard line
\nthat devolves into anticlimactic grunge; the sort you have heard
\nfifty thousand times before. But Tabor’s voice is sweet and the
\nplaying, as throughout, is stunning. Thankfully the keys return
\nwith that haunting opening line and really brings the song home
\nwith a cool multi-part harmony by Tabor (who handles all singing
\nduties).<\/p>\n
For a wonderful hook, look no further than “Better Left Unsaid.”
\nGreat chorus with stellar understated guitar. My one complaint is
\nthe Hootie and the Blowfish organ sound during the verses.
\nUnnecessary and sounds too slick. But it’s a hot song – with a
\nkeyboard outro that really brings about a late-60s early 70s
\natmosphere in a heavy-metal kind of way.<\/p>\n
There are some other tunes worth listening to on
\nIce Cycles<\/i>, but nothing all that noteworthy. If you liked
\nWhen Pus Comes To Shove<\/i> you have to hear this; understand,
\nin my somewhat-biased review mode this album’s biggest fault is its
\nlack of the elements that made
\nWhen Pus Comes To Shove<\/i> so great. Which means I’m a dumbass
\nand I’m missing something here. But that’s cool – I’ll keep
\nlistening to it.<\/p>\n
Obviously if you’re into King’s X, the Dixie Dregs, or Dream
\nTheater you’ll groove on this shiz. If you like Winger, all bets
\nare off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":25510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6384],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-36716","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-platypus","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36716"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36716"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}