THE MADNESS OF MANY

When thinking about The Madness of Many, and even Animals as Leaders' legacy more generally, I find it helpful/interesting to compare them with another exciting but "out there" supergroup of an earlier generation: Emerson, Lake, & Palmer.

Like ELP, Animals are a group comprised of three wildly skilled musicians yet one of the members is clearly the driving artistic force behind the whole project. Both groups embraced non-conventional rock band makeups with ELP forgoing a regular guitarist and Animals forgoing a regular bassist. Instead, the leaders of both groups, Tosin Abasi and Keith Emerson of Animals and ELP respectively, embraced evolving electronic music technology and have decided to attack the rock format differently. And even when it comes to the music, I can't help but visualize Tosin tapping away on the lower registers of his 8-string while listening the opening Hammond Organ riff kicks off on ELP's "Tarkus."

But the most important comparison for the sake of this specific review is just how much both groups are capable of simultaneously delivering smooth sounding "hit worthy" material with head scratching experimentation. There are many moments on this record, as with ELP records, where the sentiment of the listener can't help but be, "That was pretty cool? but do I like it?" And although the answer is usually ends of being yes, its still not something I care to ask every time a pop on a record.