ONES & ZEROS - VOLUME 1

I never found Forrest Gump's mother's words about a box of chocolates to be true in relation to 3RDegree. "I always know what I'm going to get" to a great degree (no pun intended) with them-a reverence to Prog's past while exploring new avenues, a reliance on hook-laden music first followed by prog noodling and all that-you know the drill. But who could expect they'd go and make a concept album and well...nail it?! Is it a rock opera with characters like Rael or Tommy or whoever? No, not by name per se, but you do get the feeling you're a character caught in the maelstrom of the Moody Blues-y front cover making his or her way through the trials and tribulations found in the songs.

As it is a volume 1, you do get a feeling of completion as the themes from "Life" and "Life At Any Cost" sort of come to a conclusion in the album ender "More Life" but a volume 2 is promised so you wonder where they go from here. The album-at the usual length of 50 minutes for an album these days-never overstays its welcome and never milks the concept album for too long with reoccurring themes or too many interjections of non-musical items like the running Valhalla Biotech "device" used throughout and even the spoken word segments within the songs really do help flesh out the story.

If you want to just listen to this album like any other 3RDegree album-for it's songcraft and musical performances (Dobbs' lead vocals are always a standout-no different here) go right ahead but if you want to delve into the first half of a 2 album concept suite dealing with futurism, The Singularity, privacy (or lack thereof) in the internet age, the ultra A.I. (?), ability enhancement and "living forever"-the water is warm. Jump in!