OBSCUROS

DISCONNECT are a two-headed project of longtime musical collaborators. Brian Eschrich cares for the percussion work where Erich O'Dell is the multi-instrumentalist who brings his guitar, bass and keyboard skills in. Now they are seemingly bubbling over with ideas - 2010 has been a very productive year for them with an EP and two full albums as the result. 'Obscuros' is their current effort, shows them on a promising way where they blend eclectic, heavy rocking and mellow elements in their own unique way.

Well - a decision to start with 'What Else Is Left To Say?' would be a bit contra-productive in a literal sense, right? So I'll keep this locked until later. The album starts with The Visitor - a bit Rush influenced maybe - I liked the varied guitar work, sometimes even psychedelic tinged. A nice one - only the backing (female?!) vocals are irritating me around the six minute mark, dimminish my good feelings a bit. Never mind, the groovy Circadian Rhythms distracts me from that immediately due to this interesting jazzy/ethno percussion work right from the start.

The formidable instrumental title track then comes along with grooving sections and distinct King Crimson influences. Aggregate Waste is superficially reaching for mainstream territories, except the eclectic guitar interlude somewhere in between. K. G. indeed is reminding of Kevin Gilbert in some way - a lively song provided with esprit and an outro showing nice acoustic guitar and piano contributions. A Most Unpleasant Business works good too, inspired by Steven Wilson as well as provided with a straightforward rocking part.

On the extended What Else Is Left To Say? they take their time to let it flow - a mellow melodic start, charming electric piano. And then a switch to a strong metal attitude with heavy guitar riffs occurs for the first time. A tricky exemplar - changing time signatures - some Porcupine Tree reminiscences here - a symphonic touch there, when they come back to the relaxed starting point. And finally O'Dell adds nice guitar solos.

'Obscuros' holds heavy outfitted songs in the majority, decorated with well placed guitar riffs, melody, variety. They put prog basics with some mainstream rock elements together. An album which cannot shoot me down really, however a solid effort for sure. I wished to detect catchy elements bearing more remembrance, which bands like Rush and Porcupine Tree are able to deliver. And Erich's vocal impact is limited, an obvious issue to improve. All in all as for production and compositional attempt a promising affair though.

Well colour me surprised I actually found a DISCONNECT album that I like! I honestly wasn't expecting this after checking out several of their other recordings and just not feeling it at all. I mean there would be the odd good song but this has at least five tracks that are excellent to say the least. Now there's two songs that I would discard from this disc if I could that being "K.G." and the other "Aggregate Waste" but that's not enough negativity to go 3 stars here. Okay a low 4 stars it is. It's a 65 plus minute disc from this duo out of New Jersey. Lots of heaviness on this one and the vocals which have been an issue in the past most of the time really only falter on the two tracks that I mentioned earlier.

So much good music on here including the opener "The Visitor" where they contrast the calm parts with the heaviness really well. "Circadian Rhythms" is great right from the hop. It turns more powerful just before 2 minutes and vocals arrive. Just a really cool sounding tune. The title track reminds me at times of KING CRIMSON during their "Discipline" era. I like the way they change things up on that long track "What Else Is Left To Say?" at over 14 minutes. Time to try some things here and they do. Spacey moments, powerful ones, distortion and more. Love the guitar style after 4 1/2 minutes and after 9 minutes and after 13 minutes. "Outlander" opens sounding familiar and it ends that way too with the powerful and experimental sounds. Some grungy guitar here when it kicks in. Spacey too at times along with distortion. Spoken words late. The closer again contrasts the heaviness and mellow parts really well.

As Uwe points out, in 2010 this band released two studio albums and an EP. The inspiration was flowing but mostly it poured into "Obscuros".