BEYOND REALITY

What is it that today fascinates so many people that apparently gets an orgasmic joy at listening to bands operating after the receipt model? What is it for a mechanism that makes our brain embrace normality, lack of surprises, superficiality, plagiature, shiny apparences and that kind? As a musician, I've asked myself this question many times; in music terms, I've asked myself WHAT makes neo-prog enjoyable? What's the meaning of hearing a new group rehashing old ideas, trying to hide the fact that they are old by just revamping it with newer sounds or other cheap tricks? Are we afraid of digging and willing to find the deep substance that makes music worth listening or learning? Are we satisfied only to have a superficial ear massage? Don't we want to find a true personnality behind the notes instead of the ghost of other actors suddenly recognized? All those questions have bothered my mind as I listened repeatedly to "Beyond Reality". What did I find? A band that apparently gives way too much care to everything connected to the form: slicky sound and booklet, huge marketing on the web, artwork generally. But what about the content, the music? Pasting Steve Hackett's licks and fading them with Gilmourian guitars, using as many prog clichés as possible heard in so many other bands before, shaking the whole thing in a big bowl to make as if it is not recognizable doesn't give much meaning to me. Mangrove's members are fine craftsmen, they know how to use tools and turn knobs, maybe even record their solo to a click and quantize afterwards if necessary but where's the heart, their real themselves? It seems that they want to please as many prog heads as possible and therefore fish as much as possible inside the prog archives and their icons! That's a dead idea and it smells of business; furthermore, it depreciates the word *progressive* to do things that way. It becomes a marketable product, like a soap. Perfect forms shaping empty content are due to quickly be forgotten and will only please those who live of illusions or those who don't want to seek anything particuliar but find it enough to have an agreable background made of repetitions of the past. I am really surprised to see so many stars flourishing in the reviews of *specialists* here on this forum; I see in it a strong sign of our today's society, outlined among other by mass consumption, superficiality and boring times. Can't really give more than two stars and would urge you guys to be more asking in your music habits. Wake up!