NATURE'S IMAGINATION (CHAPTER ONE)

This ten minute four track EP captures the band as a duo, with Greg Murphy and Scott Baker sharing all instruments and vocals. As with their other material there is a real refusal to conform to any perceived norm and instead are creating whatever they wish, mixing and melding loads of different styles. It's a shame that they had to use a drum machine, but according to Bandcamp they are later going to release versions of these songs with Kyle Boggs playing on them so I'll forgive them for now.

There is quite a lot of acoustic guitar within these four songs, and plenty of vocal harmonies, with a definite edge to everything that they do. There is real angst here, which comes over very strongly in "A Battling Brook" where the line is repeated "They'll never take us alive". As with the other release by these guys there will be plenty of progheads who won't feel that this should be called prog as it is way more indie than many would like, but it's all good to me!! As with most of their material, it is available for free download from Bandcamp so why not give them a try?

This is the first of two EP's with the title of "Nature's Imagination" this is Chapter One. Again, I want to let you know that this music can be listened and downloaded in Pseudo/Sentai's Bandcamp page, so do it, it is worth it. This one has a length of ten minutes divided in four short songs, the line-up is Scott Baker and Greg Murphy, who together create this crazy and interesting music based on guitars, vocals and programming.

It opens with "Smother Fucker" which has a nice soft sound, not as intense as their first single I previously reviewed. Here the rhythm at first is just attractive and even catchy, but later the song turns a bit more interesting, I like the guitar and the programming as background. After two minutes is vanishes but restarts in a soft way, pretty cool. "Goldfish Tree" has acoustic guitar and later the programming appears along with the vocals, I like a lot their vocal style when it comes to harmonies. The song flows and remains slow until 2 minutes where it explodes.

"A Battling Brook" has a nice and soft sound that might not be the closest to prog rock, which does not really matters; here I like that in spite of the soft sound, the lyrics show the opposite. The last seconds are just some keyboards fading. And finally "Star Canvas", which has a sympathetic rhythm easy to dig and enjoy. The song flows and becomes more interesting later, I like the guitar riffs and the keyboards. A nice one!

So now, let's go for the following chapter. Please don't pay attention to the rating, I am giving it 2 stars but it doesn't matter, the music does.

Enjoy it!