HERETICS

When my wife and I started dating 17 years ago, I sent her a mix tape of some of my favorite music - can you tell we were kids in the 70's! One of the songs was "Goodnight Elisabeth" by a great band that's in no way prog. I had no idea that it was one of my wife's favorite names, and that we would end up naming our teenage daughter Elizabeth. The point is that I might be a little biased when it comes to the CD I'm reviewing, Dream The Electric Sheep's HERETICS! Luckily, there are a lot of legitimate reasons that I think highly of this album.

More often than not, what I'm looking for in the music I listen to is something different. I want to hear elements combined in an interesting way, that I haven't heard a dozen times before. This band's influences are apparent, and thoroughly discussed elsewhere. DTES definitely aren't a clone of other bands in the broad progressive universe. It's possibly their greatest selling point. Another excellent thing about Dream the Electric Sheep is Matt Page's singing. He has a terrific voice and technique. He doesn't sing each song the same way.

My favorite songs, like those of my fellow reviewers, are at either end of the album. But truly, there isn't a song here I don't like. I only have two minor complaints. The first is that some of the songs overstay their welcome. This is probably an occupational hazard of post-rock inspired music, which tends to sound superficially repetitive. However, repeated listening to these 11 tracks reveals details I hadn't noticed before. The second is that for a concept album about specific influential women (read DTES' Bandcamp page), the lyrics are pretty vague. Like I've already stated, these are very minor reservations. I'm giving HERETICS 4 stars, even though they stole my daughter's name!