THE UNDEFINED DESIGN

What amounts to essentially a two man band, MAN ON FIRE put out one of the more interesting albums of 2003 with "The Undefined Design". This is a dense, catchy, lush, often crunchy affair without being either metal, pop or symphonic. This album falls quite fairly into the "art rock" category. Showing influences from everyone from QUEEN to GENESIS, STYX (their good stuff) to RUSH, KANSAS to perhaps tiny bits of QUEENSRYCHE and PINK FLOYD.

Jeff Hodges provides all keyboards, samplers and vocals as well as producing the effort. Eric Sands plays all bass, fretless bass and guitar parts. The musicianship of both is uniformly excellant and Sands occasionally approaches brilliance playing his fretless. Hodges' singing is clear and interesting, his voice reminding me overwhelmingly of Nik Kershaw on his early efforts. Hodges production is quite good; clear with nice headroom, giving all instruments their due in the mix at the right times.

One might easily fear that a two man band using loops and samples would succumb to the temptation to employ a drum machine, but thankfully that isn't the case here. Percussion is handled by three different session musicians on various tracks. There are no Buford-Palmer-Peart drum pyrotechnics here, but all drummers are competent and the album completely avoids the "canned" sound that drum machines so often provide.

Also appearing is sometime KANSAS member David Ragsdale playing violin on three tracks, further reenforcing the perception of KANSAS influences.

Often heavy and dark, the music lyrically explores such diverse subjects as cruelty to children and the search for spiritual understanding, but avoids being "preachy".

A worthy effort and a very solid four stars.

Wow, I was not expecting this disc to be this good. It gets better with each listen, too. The first thing that caught my attention was the incredible production value, so much room for the music to breath, and breath it does, again... Wow!!! Jeff Hodges produced this gem, as well as being the vocalist, keyboardist and electronic device guy, the samples are awesome and used as the percussionist behind the various drummers. How often have you listened to a band and, though the sleeve sites a percussionist, you can't hear them through the studio mix? Every clack, clang, ching, thwap can be heard. Crystal clear. Eric Sands - Fretless and Fretted Basses, also plays some killer guitar. The fretless work is stellar and puts Sands in the same category as Mick Karn (closest in style) and Tony Levin. You can virtually follow the bass lines throughout each track and never lose it in the mix, Wow!!! Three different drummers take turns at the kit, but play in a similiar enough style as to not take away from the tunes. A real continuity flows through this disc. Violinist David Ragsdale takes a few, oh too short, solos on three tracks. Jeff hodges vocals hint at Geddy Lee in many places, not a copy, mind you, just a similarity. The lyrics have some spiritual leanings, but don't shout at you, subtle and up-lifting. My only complaint is the shortness of the soloing, a few extra minutes of violin-guitar-keyboard trade offs would have elevated this CD's rotation value in my stereo. Fans of harder edged music that borders on Metal will enjoy this, especially Rush and Queensryche fans.

Man on Fire is a two-piece American act. The Undefined Design is their second album and is self-produced. Jeff Hodges sings and plays keys while Eric Sands is on guitars and bass. Three different guests handle drums and David Ragsdale appears on 3 tracks with his trademark and well traveled violin. Sands is first and foremost a bass player as he has a very unique style that often carries the music. Adding the fact that they would enlist Adrian Belew to handle guitar duties on the follow up to The Undefined Design makes me conclude Sands would rather be on bass.

On this effort, Sands plays a lot of fretless bass and it really is the focal point of a lot of the songs. The guy is an underrated player and he really uses his bass to give the songs a lot of their main thrust instead of having it just be a backing instrument. When the guitar makes an appearance it is often hard edged but other times is often just for accentuation and really is not often featured prominently. But this is still high energy and often bombastic music. Hodges in not really a conventional keyboard player, either. There aren't any majestic keyboard passages. He just works to get a lot of "wall of sound" (for lack of a better phrase) type effects to compliment that ever present bass. I guess you could call the effect prog-funk, as there is a funky vibe throughout. The drummers throw in quite a bit of percussion effects outside standard drums. They even dip their toe into an electronic feel in a few songs. Hodges has a nice throaty and full voice that fits in very nicely.

This album if for the people who like good groove with modern production and an unconventional approach. Sands really leaves his stamp with his bass but the effect of all that fretless succeeds even though you get the same tone throughout a lot of the songs. No epics here, even the 3-part first song is broken up and feels like 3 separate songs. Defined as eclectic here, a case could be made for heavy prog or even crossover as well. This certainly is not a true-blue prog lover's dream but is a high energy, funk inspired effort that should please many. I'll go four stars based on what it is, not what it is not.