BOTTLED OUT OF EDEN

Kavus Torabi has learned a lot through his work with SPIDER STACEY (The POGUES), Tim SMITH (The CARDIACS) and DAEVID ALLEN (GONG) as well as British Zeuhl band, GUAPO, but the effect of these widely diverse musical styles may have caused a kind of mistaken or lost identity--a kind of chamelonic "Zelig" effect (to steal Woody Allen's idea). In each of the songs and even the layers of sounds and stylings used in the songs on Bottled Out of Eden seems so disparate and splintered as to cause an internal tension to me, the listener--it's as if I'm being torn apart by the different directions in which the drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, horns, folk instruments, multiple vocals, and tempos are each trying to take me.

Five star songs: the XTC-like 3. "I Am Lost" (7:14) (9/10) and the slower, piano-based micro-drama, 9. "A Dream About a Dream" (5:43) (9/10).

Four star songs: the simple and pretty, 5. "Foul Temple" (2:38) (8.5/10); 1. "High-Aflame" (6:29 (8.5/10); the simple and straightforward, 10. "Secret Words" (3:12) (8/10); the most integrated multi-layered song on the album (which ends up, ultimately, disappointing), 11. "Feel the Sorcery" (3:50) (8/10); 2. "The Germ Inside" (4:48) (7.5/10), and; the jazzy King Crimson-like and mostly instrumental, 7. "I Must Set Fire to Your Portrait" (5:37) (7/10).

Three star songs: the boring, drab, 4. "The Deathless" (5:26) (6.5/10) and the torturous, atonal hodgepodge that is 8. "Lowered into Necromancy" (4:04) (6/10).

If everything Kavus writes sounds like him, then this is one dude that I would not be able to hang around with very very long--his multi-directional freneticism is beyond my capacity or interest to tolerate. P.S. If Knifeworld has been admitted to PA, where is the daddy of these post-punk pop-oriented Brits, Andy Partridge/ XTC?