EXPERIMENTS IN MASS APPEAL

Now here is a fun album. It's one of those albums I picked up out of curiosity for the many raving reviews it got. Well, it's easy to see why. The music has a very immediate appeal: catchy tunes, big production, intelligent compositions and a strong emotional vocalist who knows how to balance on the edge of a cheese pit without falling into it.

I kept my final judgment about this album in limbo for quite a while. Direct mass appeal always makes me a tad suspicious and I'm not too big a fan of similar sounding bands like Muse, Kean and Dredge. But as it turned out my doubts were largely unjustified. A good year after its release, I find myself enjoying this still as much as the first time.

The opening title track is the best on the album for me: adventurous pop-rock with great melodies and a couple of strong compositional twists. Also Welcome to Nowhere is a striking marriage between the creative energy of prog and the emotionality of pop. And on it goes. Pocket Sun continues the strong quality curve. With its mix of prog and electro, this album accomplishes what I think Pure Reason Revolution tried to accomplish on their second album.

Saline is a sugary sweet ballad, but again it is done very tastefully. We're 24 minutes into the album till the opening of Dear Dead Days finally explains why this is called neo-prog. They luckily manage to avoid the many trappings of the genre, even though I think that the heavy dependency on electronics will make this song sound pretty dated in a few years. Not bad but not my favourite.

Falling Down brings me back into this album's spell. Again it's a lively and original interpretation on all things Muse and Radiohead without being derivative. Toys sticks very close to pop formulas but still it has a rhythmic approach that manages to grab my attention.

I would expect a slightly stronger closing track then Wonderland to hand out 4 stars but this band sound so fresh and frisky I can't help myself but to be charmed by it. Finally a prog collective that brings in a few new twists and sounds into this stale scene called neo-prog. A breath of modern fresh air.

PS. I probably won't be playing it all that much though as my wife thinks it way too lame and tame. (Yes she's a tough lady, totally into Agalloch these days) So be warned. Don't pick this up if you're in a really dark places right now.