DREADNAUGHT — Musica En Flagrante

Avant-Garde?? Fusion? Never mind! Certainly an awesome masterpiece in progressive music!!

DREADNAUGHT is a very interesting unique band and as far as I read none of their albums is similar to another, moreover there are no comparisons possible to any other band. Nevertheless when listening carefully to their music one can detect direct influences like Zappa, King Crimson, Country, Hillbilly, Blues, Jazz and modern electronic as well as some modern chamber music. Actually their sound is in a way impossible to describe. I would call it something like Avant-Fusion if there would be such a thing, not really like the mostly hard to be digested stuff usually presented in Avant-Garde but some innovative music that can be absolutely enjoying for anyone with an open mind and open ears.

“Musica En Flagrante” contains 19 tracks most of them being shorter than 3 minutes. This fact might bring to mind artists like Mike Patton or Mike Keneally showing similar structures on their albums. But I’ve to say that Dreadnaught’s music is much more pleasant to the ears and I dare say (without putting those musicians down) it is of superior quality. Although styles are being changed at times within seconds the seemingly constant flow of the music is not disrupted at any moment. One could say that they thoroughly reconstructed their influences by adding them up to their very own material and created like this an entirely independent truly self-contained music style. Sometimes there are motifs placed next to each other that never have been joined in that way and even no one before would have thought that they fit together. But like a big wondrous surprise it really works and the result is just astounding. Though it’s really almost impossible to describe the music offered here I’ll try to give at least a rough overview of the CD. But anyway I’d like to advice everybody just to listen to it and to expect the unexpected.

The slightly ambient opener “R. Daneel Olivaw” (title taken from a novel by Isaac Asimov) is with its laidback groove a perfect introduction to the band’s sound. Thereafter the styles are going from surf sound over some type of semi-improvised avant-garde with moderate dissonance played on piano and brass to the highly playful “Tiny Machines” sounding like a weird alienated modern and rocking version of ancient movie score track “The Clou” (if I’m not wrong). Then comes one of my favorites on here the kinda acid jazz piece “Northern Pike” with an amazingly cool harmonica revealing a bit the style called “Progabilly” they had become known for after their album “The American Standard”. This is the longest track on here and really great stuff I just can say. The short “Gulf of Tonkin” is rocking off to something called “Pants Down” (in two pieces) that sounds again quite avant-gardistic, dark and rather industrial-alike. “Big Cats” and “Threnody…” are opening in a way second half of the album which is overall less upbeat with a more orchestral and film score like approach. Some people call the second half somehow weaker and less interesting than the first one. I would say it’s just different, not as quirky as the first couple of pieces having a more lush and symphonic atmosphere but without any apparent decrease in quality. “Fanfare for a losing team” is a kind of Zappa-tinged modern chamber rock whereas “The Boston Crab” is returning to a more guitar and bass dominated sound with some metal-alike eruptions. “Elba”, another one of the few longer tracks is another favorite of mine, a piece dominated by a dark keyboard sound and bass. Before the album is closed by “Royal Jelly”, a guitar dominated rather upbeat track there is the chamber rock piece “The Sirens Of Titan” which is subdivided by four parts and offers some great violin sound in gypsy style.

To summarize my impression of this work I just can say that there isn’t any moment of boredom present neither are there any parts filled with everlasting soloing or enervating dissonance and oddity. I’m not sure if my review can help anyone to get an idea what this CD sounds like. I just hope so and possibly I could at least quicken the appetite of some people with an affinity for some innovative and adventurous music done with extremely artistic skills and talents. I can’t see any reason for resisting to give the highest score for this.

Posted Tuesday, May 30, 2006, 15:16 EST | Permanent link