Say this for Spock’s Beard; they keep you guessing.<\/p>\n
Progressive rock has one huge fault; going to extremes. If you
\ngo too far into the ozone, you end up with twenty-nine minute
\nkeyboard flatulations. (See a good deal of Yes’s catalog,). If you
\ngo too far towards the four minute world of radio play, you
\nget\u2026well\u2026pop music. (See Alan Parsons’
\nAmmonia Avenue<\/i> CD.)<\/p>\n
By the time their last CD,
\nDay From Night<\/i>, came out, the boys in the Beard had gotten
\nthe balance down pat. Quick, tight songs like “Skin” balanced
\nperfectly with longer opii like “Crack The Big Sky”. So the
\nquestion remained, as I put
\nV<\/i> on my CD player for the first time, could the balance be
\nmaintained?<\/p>\n
Well\u2026like I said, they keep you guessing. The answer is
\nno. Not really. Except\u2026well\u2026<\/p>\n
I hate reviewing CDs like this.<\/p>\n
See, it’s all in how you phrase the question. If you ask, “Is
\nV<\/i> a good progressive rock CD, as most progressive fans view
\nthe genre?” the answer is, “Yes”. If you ask, “Hey, Duke, we know
\nyou’re a schmuck, but tell us, did you like this as well as
\nDay From Night<\/i>?”, the answer is, “Uh, no.”<\/p>\n
What Spock’s Beard did right was, as usual, stellar
\nmusicianship. I think SB may be the single most talented group of
\npure musicians currently performing, and they nail every single
\nthing they try to do on
\nV<\/i>. Every note, every riff, every bizarre shift to new
\nweirdness (say, the Spanish guitar and organ break on “At The End
\nOf The Day” or the Ets-ate-my-string-quartet intro to “Revelation”)
\nworks. It’s like watching Mark McGwire hit a home run or Michael
\nJordan dunk; it’s perfection so matter-of-fact you grow to expect
\nit. My only criticism is for keyboardist Ryo Okumoto: yes, Kansas
\nhad some neat organ parts, didn’t they? Do you have to sound THAT
\nmuch like a refugee from
\nLeftoverture<\/i>? Right, it’s minor, move on.<\/p>\n
What they did wrong is harder to quantify. There aren’t any bad
\nsongs on this disc, but I knew we were in trouble when after three
\nlistens I went, “What was the name of that song again?” There’s
\njust not much identity or passion to
\nV<\/i>. It’s clinical to the point of being almost\u2026but not
\nquite\u2026sterile. This is the hardest thing for a music critic
\nto describe; when you listen to a CD and it sounds OK, it seems OK,
\nbut there’s somehow a heart missing to it that you can’t quantify.
\nAll I can say is what I’ve said. There’s something missing. Only
\n“Revelation” and “Goodbye To Yesterday” come close to showing real
\npassion.<\/p>\n
Spock’s Beard is one of my favorite bands, and it’s hard to give
\nthem a review that’s less that glowing. But in this case, it’s not
\nas good as it could be, and it’s missing something.
\nV<\/i> still is recommended for Spock’s Beard fans and
\nprogressive rock fans, but if you want an introduction to what Neal
\nMorse and company are capable of, stick to
\nDay For Night<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":28088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6237],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39482","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-spocks-beard","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39482","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39482"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39482"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}