PAMPERED MENIAL

Such an underrated album! Pampered Menial has become one of my all-time favourites, possibly even in my top 25. Quite simple (musically) as prog goes, but just the combinations of instruments and even the songs alone are so unique and excellent. Famous for being dismissed by critics, and having the largest advance of any band EVER ($650,000 from ABC records), but seems to have been forgotten through time. For me, just an absolute diamond in the rough.

Lots of people obviously compare David Surkamp to Geddy Lee's voice, but I prefer Surkamp's by quite a long shot. Great vibrato and such an incredible peak (notably heard on "Natchez Trace"). Great guitar playing by the REO Speedwagon guitarist, Steve Scorfina, who is credited with writing my 2 favourite songs on here (I should really check him out more!). I'm also a big fan of the vitarist, Siegfried Carver. Just listen to the solo towards the end of "Song Dance" - mind-blowing!

The pianist (David Hamilton?) is also very good, but in places, the honky-tonky riffs get a bit tiresome. Otherwise, a great fit into the album. Also, displays a great level of variaton (as with the rest of the band) on the opening track "Julia". However, I think it was a mistake to open with this song. Made me stop listening to the album the first time around (and the album cover put me off as well). One more little nit pick would plainly be the song "Fast Gun". While I started off liking it, it doesn't continue giving after multiple listens like the other songs do. If I had to remove one song, it would easily be that and possibly "Preludin" (doesn't entirely fit in, even though it does give a lot of variation). With these omitted, it would be a flawless masterpiece, but it would be missing something I suppose (unless they were replaced with 2 others). Would also be even shorter than 33 minutes, so yeah :P

Lyrically, the album is also brilliant (albeit fairly inconsistent). "Natchez Trace" and "Of Once And Future Kings" in particular show this. "Episode" too has some great lines, and a great lyrical structure, with the reoccuring "Or is it best to go unseen?" Beautiful! :P The chord progressions heard aren't on the whole that adventurous but still provide a thrilling feel, very rocky and would be so great to hear something like this on the radio. That said, Pavlov's Dog do push the boundaries a little with their tritones on that great resolve to F#m to B on "Subway Sue". Also keeps me interested and keeps the power going. "Last November", "Song Dance", and "Natchez Trace" are my favourites, and have some sort of fifth element because they shouldn't really work musically but are just so outstanding and some of my favourite songs of all time really...

A+ - Give it a few listens if you haven't already. In a word (or 2), underrated masterpiece.

Julia: ***** Late November: ***** Song Dance: ***** Fast Gun: *** Natchez Trace: ***** Theme From Subway Sue: ***** Episode: ***** Preludin: **** Of Once And Future Kings: *****