TESTING TO DESTRUCTION

This is an excellent album from ex violin player of King Crimson. Nope, don't ever guess that the music is very close to KC. It's totally different, my friend. I can't help you in identifying the similarity of this album's music with any other bands. Yes, it has all violin sounds but it does NOT seem to close to ESPERANTO or KANSAS or GENTLE GIANT. It's just different. It's powerful! Here is my details .

"Learning Curve" is the kind of track that I fell in love with at first spin! It's a unique music. How unique is unique? I could hardly identify what sort of influences this composition has. It's so different with any other rock music I have ever heard; it' perfect. It has many shifting tempos in an upbeat rock scheme but with relatively stable tagline melody as its main structure. It's rocking and so stunning. Amazing music. The vocal line is unique (and again .. I fail to identify the similarity of vocal line with other singers of rock band.)

"Calamity" is another excellent track with more exploration of electric violin and keyboard with great melody. The other noticeable thing is the way the singer fills the vocal line. I would consider this track as ballad progressive rock. The sounds the play of violin accompanied by keyboard are really good. Yes, the style of violin may sometime close to King Crimson but I don't think that it's influenced by KC as it might be the this is David's style in composing violin-based lines.

Another excellent track is "The Affable Mr. G" with an upbeat tempo, it is a projecting an "energy" to its listeners. It has unique singing style with relatively stable musical rhythm to accompany the singer. This track is the most rocking one of the album! "The Swing Arm Disconnects" is an avant-garde kind of arrangement with violin exploration accompanied by percussion. "Tripwire" is a happy rhythm track with an upbeat tempo and jazzy style voice. It's nice.

The concluding track "Abo" (12:22) is probably the only track that you may claim as similar with King Crimson, even though it's not really close as the way keyboard sounds composed and singing style is totally different. This track is really excellent. It may be too long at intro but when the music flows, I is fascinating! The other thing that needs to be mentioned is the drumming style is similar (not the same) with BRUFORD's. Rating 4/5. - Gatot Widayanto, Indonesia.