A CAPPELLA

This album is progressive in concept, not necessarily in sound. The idea is that every sound on the album was created by Todd Rundgren's own body, either voice, handclaps or other sounds. On many of the tracks, like Johnee Jingo, Hodja and Mighty Love, this is obvious. On most of the others, Todd's sounds are passed through effects and processors, to give them the effects of drum and instument noises.

The result is a decent, but not great, Todd Rundgren album. He keeps his songwriting somewhat low key, probably to simplify the recording process. But the sound is still noticably Rundgren. Particularly, Something To Fall Back On sounds like it has the same keyboard sound that Rundgren had been using on many of his pop recordings for years.

The most prog tone on the album is Miracle in the Bazaar, a spacy, Middle Eastern themed piece, where sound float around. But the best song is the heavy rock Lockjaw, a sort of sill, but fun song about the after affects of lying.

Not an essential album, but worth a listen to the audiophile.