VOLUME ONE

After listening to a plethora of prog today including Eloy, Santana and Kamelot, my ears had to really adjust to Perhaps. The music immediately swarms with vitality with frenetic percussive layers that would make Christian Vander reach for his sticks to join in. Don Taylor drums like a man possessed attacking his kit with a ferocity that I have not heard in a long time. The guitar work of Sean McDermott is insane, as he screams it up to 11 and then goes one louder. The guitar is a fusion of tortured arpeggios and furious string picking in the first section. Then it settles after a while in a semblance of some melody, but it doesn't last long. The bass is comparable by Jim Haney, reminding me of the way Jack Bruce used to hold the sound together with Cream.

The honey over the rice pudding is the glorious saxophone blasts of Tom Weeks, as good as the sound of Banton from Van der Graaf Generator. There is a trumpet and violin section mixed in the cauldron, and this is a relentless bubbling brew that has astonishing asymmetrical rhythms and is a manic avant jazz workout for 40 minutes non stop.

It just continues to build into a frenzy of musical instruments competing for supremacy, and at times sounds like an explosion went off in a music shop. The guitar work moves into a speedy picking style until it suddenly breaks into a seizure of short blasts as if the train were trying to get up the hill. It ascends with determination then settles into some dissonant textures, music like I have never heard. The polyphonic rhythms return and then a fiery percussion that leads to a new time sig, though no time sig is held for long, but I like it when I can lock onto a sig in places as it gives you breathing space from the irregular beats. The guitar in one passage has a 70s twanging feel and there is a cool rhythm when the sonic effect is heard. It builds in intensity back to a hyperspeed pace, but then again releases the tension into a more laidback feel. The threat of a paroxysm of fire is always looming, and it germinates slowly after a really nice lead break and bass pulsations over the jazz drum metrics.

More delightful trumpet is heard breaking the tension, and it echoes off into the distance over the bass groove. The guitar riffs return at about 21 minutes in, with hypnotic effect and a Hawkwind atmosphere is generated with spacey effects like some Sonic Attack on the senses. At this point I think I am either listening to genius musicians or these guys are simply off the trolley. The Hawkwind atmosphere becomes even more prominent at 23 minutes, with psychedelic effects colouring the trilling of Bryan Murphy's trumpet embellishments.

The jamming continues with enough power to blow Spongebob Squarepant's mind as he screams for his spatula, and it gets even faster at the 26 minute mark. The guitar unleashes a convulsion of fret melting notes, and the percussion argues with it, and wins the argument with bone jarring savagery, as Taylor smashes his drum kit to pulp. The spacey other worldly sound intensifies and then at about 30 minutes in everything drops out and we hear a gentle guitar and some reverb percussion. The calm is unsettling in the eye of the storm but the ears readjust to normality as a very relaxing melody locks in. It has a kind of motorik Kraut vibe as it increases in volume and the violins paint a beautiful soundscape, as the guitars crash in relentlessly murdering the ambience. I love the lead break at this point and it has a post rock mood. The violins permeate the scape and bring us to a stirring conclusion with a shimmer of keyboards. This is shattering music, some of the best post or Math rock I have heard along with Giraffes? Giraffes! Or Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Is it for you? Listen to it on their website and see for yourself.