TOWARD THE SUN

Warning- if you love this band, please don't read this review; I have no inclination to offend anyone. I'm sorry, but I have to submit a review, if only to lower the overall rating. Yes, this band brandishes some respectable musicianship; Yes, this band demonstrates admirable compositional skills; Yes this band plays together in tight unity, but what supersedes all of that is that this band SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE YES! The plagiarism extends to the point where even lyrical phrases are borrowed! There's no mistaking this band's worship of Yes when you hear "a million voices singing" ooze from the lead singer's Jon Anderson clone voice. There is a world of difference between showing influence or employing musical allusion, as Charles Ives did in his symphonies, and slavish imitation. This album is dripping with adoration, deification even, of Yes, as if Yes, brilliant as they were, represented all that was valuable in music, and nothing else remained to be explored. I'm a big fan of Yes, but I don't see the point in trying to create a Yes album unless you are Yes, and even then it is questionable. Bands should never churn out the same material year after year, and Yes didn't. When I think of Druid, I can't help picturing the members of the band licking the feet of the respective musician's of their all too obvious heroes. I almost found the album sickening, it was so lacking in individual personality, and overburdened with fealty to only one band. Musicianship, compositional skill, orchestration etc. are all important factors, but far and above the most important qualities a band can have is creativity and personal expression. This is what makes, as an example from outside the progressive genre, Devo, simple a band as they were, far superior to any generic pop outfit. When you hear a Devo song, you know you are hearing a Devo song. They sound like no one else. It is the same quality that separates a Van Gogh from the endless generic seascapes, landscapes and portraits purchased on the side of the road. It is the distinction between "Art" and "Craft." Sadly, Druid failed miserably on this account, rendering the musicality moot.