THEORIES IN THE ABSENCE OF DEFINITION

Here comes the sun crystallized by four talented musical masters. Especially the project's founder Sebastian SCHLEICHER has already been renowned as the collaborator for some progressive rock combos like A Fish's Diving Suit / A Bird's Parachute or Amberfield, but I easily guess he could have done what he wants to do intentionally through this ep. Playing multiple instruments in this creation, he sounds more and more vivacious and encouraging.

The first two tracks have catchy, fascinating vibes. The second one "The Sky Must Be The Limit" is drenched in heavy soundquakes and spacey hints. Their strong intention for producing flavourful 'rock texture' can be appeared in the first shot "Find Me". Both are pop in a sense but we could accept their thought to create decent stuffs seasoned with progressive essence.

The titled 15-minute track is not so complicated nor heterogeneous but peaceful and acceptable, regardless of superb performance, incredibly unified, polished and arranged by the supergroup. We the audience can appreciate lots of points via this track especially as for beautiful keyboard works, sincere precise drumming / bass rhythmic techniques, deep heavy but heartwarming guitar riffs, and bluesy atmosphere-tinged but quite delightful melody lines. Their musical basis inspired by rock, pop, metal, and so-called authentic progressive rock, can be heard here there and everywhere. 15 and half minutes launched by the quartet should be short and condensed definitely.

Guess the masterpiece promises us they will produce a more fantastic full-length album in near future.

The German based quartet of Degen, Herb, Mroszczok and Schleicher that are credited as the performing and releasing unit of the mini-album "Theories In The Absence Of Definition" is, at least to my understanding, a constellation of a more ad hoc nature that was assembled to give life to the creations of main composer Sebastian Schleicher. Hence I will also refer to this as his solo album, if not for any other reason that it makes my life easier. With no disrespect intended towards the other participants. If this production is one or the other on the credit side of matters probably isn't all that important. It is what I due to the previous exposition will describe as the debut solo album by Schleicher, and the album was self released in the spring of 2020.

Sebastian Schleicher and his fellow musicians have made a fine debut mini-album of the kind that should have a broad appeal inside of as well as outside of the progressive rock universe. Atmospheric laden, compelling and inviting music with layers of soft sounds with dreamlike qualities is the order of the day here, with a harder edged concluding cut that draws the listener away from the dreams and back to reality in a rather striking manner. For my sake I'd recommend this album to just about anyone that enjoys a band like RPWL in general and what that band has been doing for the last decade or so in particular.