FENCE THE CLEAR

I see nothing wrong with taking heavy influences from past greats, but what I do and will always take issue with is when perfectly capable musicians seem to dive into the old territory, then simply stand still, without trying anything new within the space of their genre.

So it is with Tiles' Fence The Clear, whose nifty album cover and low price tag led me to pick it up in the store after I had been previously intrigued by the band on this site. I have no idea if the band as a whole has done better or worse work outside of this release, so I cannot base my rating on those factors. All I can do here is rate the album on its own merits, not on the band's overall capability. I came across two records by this band in a used bin of my local Suncoast/FYE, and had money to burn, so I bought one of them (mustn't buy two of something from the same artist when you have never heard them before). I chose this one because as I recalled, it had quite high marks on here, was fairly early on in the band's career, and the album artwork is just gorgeous.

When reading the album's liner notes, I became even more intrigued. I read about the story behind the album title, the symbolism of the cover visual, and how the band spent a long time working out the music for the record. They spoke of experimentation, clean, live takes in the studio with very little overdubs, and how the music was tried out for live audiences and perfected over time before the album was recorded. Taking in all of this knowledge, I was gearing up for quite the inventive listening experience. What I got instead was a slightly above-par Rush clone with some modern trappings thrown in now and again. Hardly the earth- shattering event the band seemed to think it was.

As I said before, being influenced by a single band of a previous generation isn't bad in and of itself (although I honestly can't wrap my head around the concept, myself). It's what you do with that influence that shows how good of a songwriter you are, how capable you are with the material, and whether or not you're able to transcend conformity and make something new and fresh with old ingredients. Don't laugh and suggest such a thing isn't even possible, because it's been one before. For all their cheese, Spock's Beard makes damn good music, and they take obvious influences from only a handful of past bands. But they succeed in creating something more substantial and less contrived than most in the same boat. Bands such as Tiles seem to always hit a brick wall at some point and come to the realization that they aren't able to go much further than what their inspiration already did twenty years ago or more. But rather than take that as a challenge and rise to it by either starting from scratch or reinventing themselves, they simply accept the fact that they aren't original or inspired in the slightest, and they go through with it anyway. Is that a lack of motivation, or is that simply not caring?

Perhaps music such as this simply can't progress any further, but if that is indeed the case, modern bands need to stop mining it for inspiration and move on to another musical frontier. There is plenty of ground still seldom covered, yet these types of modern artists always seem to head for the same exact spot. It's like a buddy told them about a super-cool place for finding gold, but by the time they get there, everybody else's buddy has told them the same thing, and nothing is left. When the stream runs empty, move on, don't hang around and hope for the best. That is, unfortunately, what I felt has happened with this music most of the time I was listening to it. That isn't to say that there aren't things to enjoy, here, but I'm simply warning you: do not go into this record expecting anything terribly original as I did, or else you'll find yourself more than a little wrought with disappointment.

Okay, so I've talked about the album's weaknesses: lack of originality. Okay, fine. But that's something that becomes more and more common all the time, so should I really give this release such a hard time over it? Perhaps not, but it's my personal opinion being shared, here. Many will disagree with me on many things I say. I write reviews to simply help my like-minded music enthusiasts steer clear of the bland or the unnecessary. I consider this album to be both, however, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's not completely worth your time. Just tread carefully when you venture into its territory. The album does have strengths to counter the weaknesses, but I just don't personally think it is strong enough to give the album anything above an average score. The strength would be the music itself, of course. Sure, it's hardly original, but it's well-played, well-produced, and sometimes a lot of fun to listen to. Will I be playing it on a regular basis when there are so many better albums in my ever-expanding collection? Well, no. But I certainly plan on breaking it out now and again when I just want to have some cheesy prog fun.

The musicians are very good, the songwriting is above par, but the originality and artistry is lacking. Good for what it is, but nothing you haven't heard before. Believe or not, however, I came out of this with high hopes for this band. I think I will pick up one of their later releases before closing my book on them. After all, the talent and ability is clearly there, and it takes time for musicians to find themselves, especially in an area as wide open and varied as Progressive Rock. No, I think Tiles might still hit the right mark in releases to come. But we'll see.