STUDIES IN HEARTBREAK

What a prolific career that seems to go unnoticed and/or underappreciated!!! I guess if your going to hone your craft in relative obscurity (far from the arenas,limos and groupies) might as well do your own thing. Steve MacCabe is a supremely talented multi- instrumentalist who shines on electric guitar and keyboards as well as dabbling with assorted other sundry instruments. Since 1992, he has released an average of an album a year, pretty stunning really with hardly a peep from prog magazines such as Progression, Expose or Terra Incognita. Lightweight? Consumer-prog? no, just an artist playing the music that inspires him without any concern about fame or fortune. This is my fifth album by MrMcCabe and crew and the previous albums have pleased me , particularly "Architect of Life" . Steve likes long extended tracks where he can stretch out his guitar excursions , grooving to some invisible inspiration , on a bed of lush keyboards that also permit him to let loose on some stunning synth flights , showing his prowess on the ivories. Over an hour of first rate soundtrack prog, no hit tune here to be sure but the intent is to explore and improvise in a tight little prog confine without any interest in overt experimentation. This is really quite unpretentious stuff that truly deserves a more involved audience (too few reviews mean few listeners?) . This is ideal Sunday morning wake up music , right between the Willowglass album and the 2 Witchwood projects from Bjorn Lynne. This band is perfectly named : Elegant Simplicity. The music is exactly that. 4 solo stars

Music for a Grand Hotel

Elegant Simplicity's 2005 release "Studies in heartbreak" is an accomplished, but ultimately dull affair. The music consists of extended easy listening pieces which are pleasant, but lack anything worth getting excited about. The nearest comparison I can offer for the music is the gently inoffensive music of SKY.

With Steven McCabe effectively performing the entire album himself, his proficiency on guitars and keyboards is commendable. Unfortunately, his compositional skills rely more on the improvisational, the album at times sounding more like the lounge music for a large hotel than anything prog. From time to time, McCabe will latch onto a theme and attempt to develop it, but all too quickly we are straight back into a lengthy lead guitar workout.

There are both rock and jazz overtones to the renditions, the music being very gentle on the ear. As such, it's not really a case of not liking the album, there's little to not like about it. It is much more a case of there being little which might be described as interesting, let alone inspired.

Those who are looking for some chill-out music to complement the sometimes very challenging aspects of the music to which this site is dedicated will find this album fits the bill well.