HELLFIRE

Prog's energetic young lovers of literature and music history are back with another mind-blowing entertainment offering--this one, remarkably, pushing beyond the limits of imagination that they had shredded and blown to pieces with 2021's Cavalcade.

1. "Hellfire" (1:24) an intense musical (vaudevillean) encapsulation of the essence of James Joyce's Odyssey. Wow! What an intense opening! (5/5)

2. "Sugar/Tzu" (3:51) a song that definitely puts on display how serious these musicians are committed to producing really top notch, complicated music. All musicians really impress, especially Morgan Simpson--but their precision teamwork! The odd story about a boxing match somewhere in the future (2063) as observed by a midget who would then become Sun Sugar's murderer is obviously a slam about the tabloid industry as well as a satire on all that our entertainment industry gives attention to. (9.5/10)

3. "Eat Men Eat" (3:08) musical cabaret with interestingly intimate vocal delivery (uncredited but I know it's Cameron). Turns George Harrison-like in the second half of the second minute. It's so hard to find fault with this amazing music! (9.75/10)

4. "Welcome to Hell" (4:10) a little punk, a little electronica, a little King Crimson, all serving to buoy Geordie's uniquely provocative and adroit delivery of his shrewdly intelligent lyrics. A little dry and monotonous in studio, this one comes to life on stage. (8.5/10)

5. "Still" (5:46) Cameron's turn again. Singing in a gentle voice over some Country&Western styled music. As we move deeper into the song, its style becomes more akin to the old-time saloon music of the Wild West. Sax, trumpet, and upright piano give it such a shift. At 2:57 the music crescendos cacophanously before clearing out for a lone acoustic guitar. Cameron picks up his singing with a little more feeling of the forlorn as vibes, strings, flutes, bird noises and other computer keyboard generated noises fill in the background for the song's long decay. Interesting. Quick beautiful in a genre-bending, time-warping way. (9/10) 6. "Half Time" (0:26) channel surfing on an old radio. Radio Rahib!

7. "The Race Is About to Begin" (7:15) So many musics! So many styles! So many tempo changes! So many clever lyrics with so many delivery styles! And then to end it all with that crooner's delivery for the final 2:50! Astounding! (14/15)

8. "Dangerous Liaisons" (4:15) gently picked electric guitar, jazz piano, jazz drumming, bassa nova bass, smooth sax accents, bowed electric guitar, and Geordie's theatric telling of a 1950s-like murder story. Seth Evan shines again with his dextrous piano play. Great story and delivery but not the most engaging music--and not very proggy (or even jazz-rock fusiony). More like retro 1950s vocal jazz with an entirely in-your-face graphic 21st Century story told over it. (8.75/10)

9. "The Defence" (2:59) thought this one starts out sounding like something off of Roddy Frame's Aztec Camers's High Land, Hard Rain from 1983) "The Bugle Sounds Again"), it becomes more something that sounds like a big band Sinatra-esque song from 70 years ago. What a lyrical message! Astounding song! Time-bending! (9.75/10)

10. "27 Questions" (5:44) time-disjointed play on some 1940s-style European music over which Geordie narrates yet another window scene of history (1943). Extraordinary work on the piano from keyboard player Seth Evan (the hardest working keyboard artist I've ever seen on a rock concert stage). In the fourth minute, the music convenes into something more stylistically resemblant to the Parisian cabaret scene of the 1940s. But then things go full in- your-face for the final 30 seconds. I feel as if Geordie is performing a finale for us, his audience, after a night-long cabaret. Extraordinary execution of a mind-numbingly complex composition but, sadly, not necessarily my favorite (as much as I like the subject matter and cabaret styles manipulated here). (8.75/10)

Total Time 38:58

The speed with which this band blends a myriad of musical styles is astounding. To have this kind of vision, collectively, mixed with the adaptability and skill of the musicians as both individuals and a collective to execute these compositions is even more astonishing. Not even Belew-era 1980s King Crimson, Pascale Son-era Cos, Samla/Zamla Mammas Manna, Cardiacs, Farmers Market, Humble Grumble, or Abel Gilbert's Factor Burzaco have produced musics like this.

The flow of this album--and of its stories being told--remind me more of a thematic cabaret or dinner theater performance--only with supremely talented/gifted musicians providing the music behind the story presentations. The infusion of some cabaret jazz and Country Western sounds/elements shows an interesting evolutionary path for these modern day Renaissance men.

A-/five stars; while I do not feel as engaged or attached to this album as I did to 2021's Cavalcade, I do think it a work of artistic genius whose peers or equals are few and far between. Definitely a minor masterpiece of highly adventurous and supremely impressive music. The question cannot be avoided: How proggy is this? (Answer: minimally.) But it is unquestionably progressive rock!