DEEP REEF DREAM

Sometimes an album cover is that good.

No kidding though. There I was, perusing the usual music blogs and video channels, in search of new music. And all it took was one glance at the cover to Deep Reef Dream, the third album from Minneapolis prog rock quartet The Light In The Ocean. They captured my attention. Enough for me to listen to a few tracks, ultimately purchasing the album on Bandcamp.

Sometimes a rock solid Johnny Quest vibe is all it takes?

I've yet listened to the band's earlier output, but if Deep Reef Dream is any indication a deep dive might be in order. This is a 1960s Gold Key Russ Manning comic transmogrified into musical form, a maniacal Hannah-Barbera adventure distilled through the articulated lenses of a Michael Bay/Wes Anderson Brundlefly.

Which is all well and good (and a mite overly-descriptive) but how's the damn music Mills? I'd rate it as enjoyable as all hell, a heady mixture combining the anthemic fun and guitar-driven crunch of hard rock but layered with sweet vocal harmonies and the layers, textures, and escapism you expect in prog. It's a heady mixture, and it works.

Take Things Inside, the opening track, in which jangly, chimey guitars introduce you to dueling vocal lines, punctuated by metal distortion between verses. Even the breakdown is accentuated with tasty trumpet lines, before erupting back into that thick rock thunderstorm. The alternating vocals on the chorus, combined with the comical exclamations between lines ("That's crazy!") drive home the song's motif, "the things I hear inside my head". It's a fantastic opener, a declaration of ethos that convincingly preps you for the spirit of this album.

Almost like a tonic, Parthenon is both a jaunty and atmospheric piece, a spirited instrumental number driven by strings and piano at first, almost like a waltz. Except the time signature is wholly other. By the time the violin takes forefront, the aforementioned jauntiness becomes a bit darker and more menacing. It's an engaging song but it's a bit emotionally discordant; it leaps around with gleeful abandon before coming in for a quick, soft landing. I would love to hear this track further developed into a longer suite.

Not to be outdone, Tijuana Sunset comes in as the second of three instrumentals in a row. It wastes no time establishing tone; a menacing keyboard drone hangs ominously over a pulsing drum beat, erupting into an up-tempo barnstormer and settling into a horn-driven central melody. I hear this and immediately envision The Big Chase Scene, perhaps a submarine race scored by Mark Mothersbaugh and Sergio Leone. Or something. There's a distinct 80s feel to the guitars, both in tone and musicality, a wink and a nod to neo-prog of the era.

We take a quick breather with Smee, a gentle but atmospheric instrumental. The soft opening evokes lifeless waves crashing over a nighttime ocean, broken up by some rather disturbing howls coming over the horizon. There's an engaging vibe to this maritime haunt but it ends as quickly as it begins as we transition into Psyclops, the second vocal number on the album.

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king; here the Psyclops is obsessed with pollution, poisons, chemicals and residuals. Thee grunge/post-grunge elements at play are both compelling and effective, and the entire song succeeds at being purposefully odd and off-putting. The violin solo provides an unexpected emotional heft to the entire affair, which leads us (and the song) into a cacophonous uproar. Rage or destruction, perhaps? Who is to say?

Underwater Cigarettes is the first of three more instrumentals. This one is a brief sojourn, underneath a minute long. A descending (yet peppy) keyboard line, replete with air bubbles, evokes our entry into this musical bathysphere and descent into the deep. This drives us directly into the title track Deep Reef Dream, in which a sequenced drum pattern and some guitar and keyboard noodling (along with a nebulous PA announcer) welcomes us aboard.

Where are we exactly? The lobby to an underwater hotel? A cruise ship housed in a nuclear sub? Your guess is as good as mine. I'd like to think of the song as the spa music in some supervillain's secret underground lair, or what you might hear at the jazz bar in a "lost" oceanic city. At first, anyhow. I think the song falters a bit when it pivots to a central riff towards the end, but it still kept me engaged throughout.

Mr. Pippy is not what I thought it was going to be about, and thank Poseidon for that. Instead this instrumental is a short, rather introspective interlude. The guitar tones are clean and bright, the keyboard lines thick and moody under the surface. Overall it's a moderate piece, like the sustain of a whale song coursing through the oceans, but it doesn't last long enough to leave much impression.

The vocals return for the album's final piece, the eight minute/thirty second monster epic Big Beef. I am avoiding the Big Beef/Mr. Pippy analysis because avoiding Freudian implications keeps blog advertisers happy. Of which I have none. Anyway, Big Beef is a great big freakin' octopus, presumably the Technicolor monstrosity on the album cover, and he's doing what great big freakin' octopi do, which is declare war on humanity.

Can you blame him?

Big Beef is a your great big freakin' epic rocker, utterly ridiculous and equally charming all at once. The lyrics are silly as all hell but sung with perfect earnestness. Whether we are on a deep cave dive and wrapped up in tentacles, or washed up on the shore wrapped in seaweed, or witnessing a strange octopus-like silhouette is haunting the ocean by moonlight, we are in pure widescreen mode.

Make no mistake this is pure 50s monster movie imagery, brought to life with tolling bells, surf guitar riffs, thickly distorted power chords, howling horns and wailing saxes. The middle breakdown ebbs and flows like waves left in the monster's wake. While Big Beef is probably my least favorite of the three vocal numbers, it remains effective and entertaining enough to act as a proper album closer.

Overall I enjoyed the musical adventure that Deep Reef Dream provided. Dismissing it as "over-the-top" is missing the point; this is a delightful and engaging rock/prog musical romp, where the hooks, melody, and crunch of hard rock meet prog's more complex and diverse compositional explorations. All the while invoking killer octopi, oceanic lairs, chemical monsters, pirates, and jazz bars in Atlantis. Even if the album does meander at times, Deep Reef Dream remains musically daring whilst also an anthemic hard rock sojourn.

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