VICTOR

Alex Lifeson

Prog Related

3.11 | 58 ratings

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Sinusoid
Prog Reviewer

In essence, this is a side project from Rush man Alex Lifeson. For the longest time, I thought that this was a Lerxst solo thing, but apparently, it's credited to an entire band.

If you want a basic picture of the sound, think of the typical Rush sound with heavy cross- pollenation with the alternative rock scene of the 90's (not that I'm an expert in the latter genre). Very many songs are guitar-heavy with basic song structures, yet contain quite a bit of unusual time signatures. It can be difficult to follow the metre of ''Don't Care''.

The vocalist is very capable, but there's nothing special about his voice. This is excepting the spoken passages by Lifeson and a few ladies plus the Lee-like vocals of ''Start Today''. Instrumentally, the album is quite solid; we get the stellar guitar performances, but that's to be expected from Lerxst. I'm not offended by anything with the possible exception of the bass that gets a tad too clanky in spots.

A few songs branch off from the alt-rock/Rush-rock thing. Songs like ''Mr. X'' and ''Shut Up, Shuttin' Up'' have very funky jazz qualities to them. ''Strip and Go Naked'' reminds me of Jethro Tull for some reason barring when the song goes heavy metal. The title track is a very dark, haunting piece that is likely to scare the wee out of any young kid. It's one of the better efforts of the album marred only by the lyrics which have very many cheap rhymes.

It can get too noisy, but there's enough variety here so that casual music listeners will always find something to grasp. For the average progster, this may be a little too heavy, but Rush fans should have no problem getting into the feel of VICTOR. I quite like the album, but not enough for an essential recommendation. It feels like it's missing something that I can't place my finger on.

Sinusoid | 3/5 | 2009-7-21

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