AS ON A DARKLING PLAIN

Man, I listened to this album with a friend of mine and I laughed harder than I have in a long time (as did she). Don't get me wrong, this isn't a terrible album. The musicianship is high, the compositions are fairly well thought out and arranged, and the recording quality is pretty good. But man, does John Paul Strauss take himself seriously? In some ways this is almost a parody of prog. An elaborate, grandiose 40 minute epic with suitably overblown titles for each section. Some complex playing and somewhat varied instrumentation. All based on an Ann Rice vampire book. I was expecting something kind of dark and menacing. Instead, I get a fairly bouncy composition, with some darker parts that border on the ridiculous, filled to the brim with Strauss' odd baritone. There is just something about the melodies and vocals on this album that I find humorous. And the pictures in the booklet..........well, lets just say they add to the only enhance the absurdity of it all. Now, most prog heads will notice that Stan Whitaker plays on this album. I really can't imagine what prompted him to do this gig, but it doesn't really matter since it's pretty hard to tell he is on here. The few times where I hear a distinct guitar solo, it doesn't strike me as his better work. The other tracks on the album are quite similar musically to the epic, and are mostly even more ridiculous. I mean, writing a song about a rock? Seriously, the song Rock conveys the inner thoughts of........a rock. Wow. I can only assume this was meant to be funny, which makes me think that maybe the whole album is meant to be funny? If so, they don't announce it.

Anyway, on the whole, this is probably not really worth your time. It can be quite funny, and the music is not exactly terrible. As I said before, these are good musicians who play well together. The compositions, while not varying much in style, are well enough written and sometimes are borderline adventurous (mostly in the 40 minute epic). For myself, I may pull it out again if I need a good laugh. I rate it two stars purely on musical terms, but from what I can tell it is their best album so "fans" probably have it already. If you really just want to take a wild chance on a fairly obscure purchase, or are a rabid Stan Whitaker fan and must have everything he ever played on, then you may want this in your collection. Otherwise, scratch this one off your list.

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