PSYCHOANOREXIA

My first feeling is this, if you decide to create a mellow album it should be in the form of T's Psychoanorexia. I feel this is the new bench mark for calm, easy listening Neo Prog Rock. It is a terrific album filled with deep emotion, lush soundscapes and a vocalist in which if it were possible, sounds like if Peter Gabriel and Steve Hogarth gave birth to a son. Indeed, It's quite remarkable how much T a.k.a Thomas Thielen sounds like Steve Hogarth in particular. At times during the course of listening to Psychoanorexia, I thought it was Hogarth singing away on this album, but in fact it is not. Further connections with T's Psychoanorexia to the Marillion sound can be found all through out this album. I felt Thomas Thielen takes a strong influence from Marillion's Brave album. Psychoanorexia kind of follows the same suite as Brave because they both are conceptual and carry a lot of ambient, emotional sound as well as have the same amount of Heavy-ness with in the overall album(s) respectfully. Actually Psychoanorexia, like Brave, has just enough heavy moments in it to keep you interested and awake for that matter! Also, you can sight a strong connection with T's music to Brian Eno's lush, ambient creations like his work on Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks, specifically the track An Ending (Ascent) which you can hear the mellow, electronic moods on the opening track's intro ' The Aftermath of Science.'

Furthermore, the album structure and composition in Psychoanorexia is quite unique. For instance, The band 'T' is a one man show with Thomas Thielen performing and playing all instruments heard on the album. That's right, Thielen is looking like the next big success in one man bands, like the likes of Mike 'Oldfield, who in my opinion still reigns supreme in this awesome artistry format. ' Also, the conceptual album is divided into 4 suites that are all monsters in length, so each track has 3 parts to it, except for the emotionally grieving Irrelevant Love song (track 3) which is the shortest of the four clocking in at just over 8min. To continue, I was quite taken with T's album track format as well as the albums very hard, emotional storyline.'

'The conceptual breakdown of T's Psychoanorexia deals with a lot of anti-matter poetry where by it makes the album as a whole, largely open to one's own interpetation. Thielen is a very good song writer and is well educated in the liberal arts. You can really hear some of his lyrics are built around some of the great poetic minds that this world has to offer in W.H Auden, Ovid, Shakespeare and even some T.S Elliot. Overall, it's very hard to form a concrete or specific answer to what Psychoanorexia is specifically about, but my interpretation of the album is that the subject matter is built around the seedy, political underbelly of our worlds greatly sordid problems and how we are going about to solve them. The world is in a state of 'Psychoanorexia' because the people with in the world are starving, or depriving our world of peace and good. Many time you here T.T refer to the world as if it were a person itself. 'Oh Where are you going to be my sweet child of mine??' But, that's what I think and you the listener may gather something different, and that is the beauty of clever, poetic song writing but at the same time it can be frustrating and egotistical as well because archaic references 99% go way over one's head. I found that to be the case for me a little bit, but I still love what Thomas's has created and it should be respected. Quite simply, the album makes you think.'

Above all, Psychoanorexia is a very well put together both lyrically and musically. The sound production on the album is great as well where by it was mixed and mastered by Juergen Lusky, who in my opinion has made T's Psychoanorexia sound like a very clean and crisp album. I found no fault with the audio at all. Also, Thielen's keyboard synths/piano playing is very accomplished. I guess all those Piano lessons at age 12 really paid off. You can really hear this shinning example of stellar piano playing on, 'kryptonite Monologues.' The bass playing is exceptional as well, which incites Tony Levin like playing where crunchy and fast Bass is the predominate style of choice. Also, I love the clever use of the 'chapman Stick' on Psychoanorexia by T.T because it adds to the percussive diversity. Sometimes just banging the crap out of things can be successful in terms of sound and can be quite fun as well. Great diversity!

All in all, I have nothing bad to say about this album except that the lyrics are written in an elitist-like fashion, that will probably leave listeners a bit cross-eyed upon the first few listens but from a musical perspective Psychoanorexia is pure gold and a terrific listen, especially those who love the Neo prog genre. I also found that T.T's guitar playing sounds a lot like Steve Rothery's(Marillion) so that has to entice you (the prog listener) 'at least a little bit.' Have a great time listening to this album everyone. It really is a masterpiece and don't be afraid of the title cause it's not about someone with an eating disorder figuratively speaking of course.'

5/5

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