OF NATURAL HISTORY

I absolutely love this album by SGM. Based on other reviews on the Archives, I picked it up as my first introduction into their odd world, and I'm very glad I decided to check this band out. Their unique instrumentation and odd vocals form such a unique whole, they're the type of band I wish was more prominent in today's music scene.

Personal favorite tracks include The Donkey-Headed Adversary and Gunday's Child. Donkey-Headed caters to the side of me which enjoys heavier music, and the instrumentation on Gunday's Child really reminds me of a mixture of early and late King Crimson styles. Plus, the singers/vocalists are both (all?) interesting. All in all, I'd say that this is a band I'm definitely going to be paying more attention to, and I hope to see more output from them in the future. I'm tempted to say it's a masterpiece, because in my opinion there's barely a weak moment on the album; plus the band is, as I said earlier, mostly unique...I can't manage to give them anything less than a 5-star rating. If bands like this are part of what I should come to expect for the new face of prog, I'm excited.

Edit: Upon further listens, while the album is good, I can't justify keeping it at masterpiece status. Down to 4 stars, as it's still an incredible album, but I don't believe it to be among the very best anymore. (5/5/09)