A GRANDER VISION

Relayer's debut was both hard to find and a bit costly to purchase, but since I was so blown away by their second and third releases, I went the extra mile and bought this. I'm not disappointed, I can be obsessive about collections and I needed this one to fill the void. If nothing else, A Grander Vision sets up The Teething Fashion quite well. This band is a merger of Freddie Mercury vocals, Howe/Hackett guitar, a mix of master keyboarding; hints of Banks, Wakeman and others, a solid bottom end that nods to Squire, Geddy Lee and others, and drumming just as influenced by prog's early percussionists.

Poor production techniques are the main problems, along with a band trying too hard to create something epic. If I edit the first two and half minutes off the title track, A Grander Vision, they would have had a much better tune. The attempt at being artsy fails, with falsetto vocals and slightly off time gimmickery that just doesn't seem to gel. One other well intentioned mistake, is allowing one of the other band members to try to sing two lines. Steve Howe's ear ripping vocals would have been a welcome relief. The rest of the disc is okay, at best. A band still searching, questionable "la la la da da" lyrics when real words may have been more appropriate. Padding, the probable downfall of prog, is evident in more than a few instances. If you don't have anything interesting to say, say nothing at all. So what if the song comes in at 17:00 rather then 22:00. Keep it fresh.

I would say that Relayer learned a lot during this first endeavor and certainly improved their product, but if you have the money to buy this, use it for something else.