SLEEP WITH THE FISHES

Unable to perform their music live as a reduced existing duo, Vulgar Unicorn could do no else than get on writing new material immediately after their debut's release.Practically by the next album the official line-up consisted only of Neil Randall and Bruce Soord and with no drummer onboard some tracks were recorded with guests and other ones just contained drum beats.''Sleep with the fishes'' continues the close relationship with Cyclops, launched by the British label during the autumn of 1996.It features also a list of over 10 guest artists on wind instruments, drums, lead vocals and percussion.

They followed the same receipt as on their debut, there's no 44-min. composition in here, but with four pieces spanning from 15 to 20 minutes nothing has basically changed structurewise.All compositions feature a number of divided parts to form long suites, but there are definitely some stylistical updates to be found, for no good reason I am afraid.While ''Under the umbrella'' showed glimpses of a confusing sound, this album sounds pretty chaotic, the extremely long tracks along with the wide variety of styles displayed led to incosistent music, which is quite hard to follow.The absence of a drummer forced the duo to an extensive use of techno drum beats and the addition of some Electronica flavors fighting with some proggy ideas does not exhibit a very comfortable sound.There is also total lack of vintage elements, Vulgar Unicorn made an undisputed turn towards contemporary vibes and the result was not convincing.I encounter the styles presented here and I can hear echoes of Electronica, Pop, Prog, Jazz, Indie/Alternative Rock in the same piece, problem is that these ideas are not properly connected to each other.Too stretched poppy tunes and less progressive sounds lead also to a problematic album.Consider this a collection of 16 different songs and maybe you'll enjoy it better, because there are limited chances to appreciate each long piece as a Prog epic.On the other hand the interesting parts are not absent, some nice melodies, heavy riffing, keyboard lines and singing depth are always there, but the abnormal combination of unrelated sounds is always on the forefront of the album.

A step backwards from the pretty nice debut of the band.Much more modern but also very odd and chaotic in connecting different thematic sections.Several dead holes in here, so I guess this shouldn't end up in your priority list.