CHEAT THE GALLOWS

Bigelf

Heavy Prog

3.75 | 124 ratings

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Zitro
Prog Reviewer

3.6 stars

Long live Rock and Roll !!!

This is rather unoriginal music, but when do you get to listen to a good band that tries to play a tribute to the 70s classic rock bands? (as opposed to prog rock bands like Yes/Genesis).

You have here a great collection of intelligently crafted classic rock with some influences to prog rock. There are many catchy hooks, inspired instrumental sections, and great old-school grooves that bring a lot of nostalgia. You'll hear passages that may remind you of various bands, including Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, among others. While they capture the sound and vision of these bands, they made sure not to rip off any of these.

This means that you will get crunchy guitars, hammond organ runs, analogue synthesizers, epic choruses, mellotrons, and adventurous song structures. While there are songs that do not work as well as others (the Frank Zappa/Beatles inspired opener, the AC/DC inspired "Superstar", and the radio-rocker "Money, It's Pure Evil"), none fall flat for me and there is enough variety within the album to keep me interested throughout.

There are highlights in here, mostly being sections within songs rather than song themselves. The exceptions to this are "The Evils of Rock & Roll" which does everything a 70s rock fan wishes for and the groovy "Hydra" which has a wonderfully retro synthesizer solo that goes on for a while.

This is the band that is substituting for "Beardfish" in the Prog Nation tour with Dream Theater. They deserve to be there and have potential to be a popular band. I am looking forward to seeing them play.

Zitro | 4/5 | 2009-7-29

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