SIMILAR SKIN

For those of you who were turned on by Mantis but turned off my much of Death By Stereo - you should give them another try with this album.

More rock oriented but not as quite as progressive as Mantis was, still really close.

Nothing really long but the funk that might have disappointed some in the last album is gone. Instead you get a lot of concise proggy songs, very crossover.

So far for the 2014 releases I find my self returning to this one the most often.

This is a very linear album. Lyrically it is almost a concept or theme album about relationships.

US band UMPHREY'S MCGEE was formed back in 1997, and has established itself as a popular staple in the US live circuit, more often than not regarded as a part of the so called jam band scene. Over the years they have released more than a dozen of live and studio albums, and appear to have established themselves fairly well among a key audience without ever becoming pigeonholed into any specific genre-oriented crowd as such. "Similar Skin" is their eighth studio production, and was released through their own label Hanging Brains Music in 2014.

Existing fans will have explored this album in depth by the time that this review is published, and while I suspect that the album may not have gone down all that well with their entire established fan base, I applaud the band for continuing to venture out to explore and expand their boundaries rather than replicating material of the exactly same nature as they have earlier. For those who haven't given this band a check yet, this particular production is one I'd recommend to those who know and enjoy bands like King's X and Rush as they appeared in the late '80s.