BRAVE NEW WORLD

Competent guitar-based prog rock from Texas. Interestingly, the band chooses the long-playing song format to express its musical ideas more than not. Also, the band chooses to use some quite simple effects and techniques when recording their tracks.

1. "Brave New World" (11:51) nice Blade Runner-like atmospherics to open the album. A U2 guitar and PETER GABRIEL-like drum palette join in during the second minute and continue to construct and fill in the song's form (with the help of guitars and excellent bass) and flow until the fifth minute when we see a shift into a more spacious and circumspect accompaniment to Kenny Bissett's lead vocal. Kenny's voice reminds me very much--both in style and effect--of that of the lead vocalist for Dutch band FOURTEEN TWENTYSIX's Lighttown Closure (a very CURE-like album and sound). HIs voice is a bit of an acquired taste--which, after three listens or so, become accepted as part of the baseline fabric of the B4tF sound. (21.5/25)

2. "Breathe" (5:34) a little Tears for Fears and The Cure feel to this one. Nice drums (all programmed?). (8.5/10)

3. "The Sheltering Sky" (7:55) A song that tries hard on many levels with layers of effects and atmospherics but, for some reason, just never completely gels. It's decent, and interesting, just not Earth-shattering or ground-breaking. The vocals (both lead and harmonized background) I think are one of its weaknesses. (13/15)

4. "Zenith" (7:15) sounds like it could come straight off of a Kevin Moore CHROMA KEY album.(13/15)

5. "City of the Sun" (9:54) great PETER GABRIEL/FOURTEEN TWENTYSIX-like opening continues being quite engaging when Kenny's vocals enter. Probably my favorite song on the album. Its main weakness is in the relative monotony of its flow and development. (17.5/20)

6. "Azimuth" (4:08) a quite straightforward song structure which is made somewhat more interesting by unusual sound choices from the various guitars. Sounds like a VON HERTZEN BROTHERS theme. (8.25/10)

7. "Distant Land" (15:18) slide guitar in constant whale-motion in the background is the distinctive feature in the opening section of this other CHROMA KEY-like song. Awesome instrumental passage beginning at the end of the fourth minute in which David's guitar turns to lead and the band takes off in a nice fast pace. The atmospheric slowdown for the eighth, ninth, and tenth minutes is nice in a PINK FLOYD/LUNATIC SOUL kind of way. Nice YES-like section with smooth group choral-style vocals in the twelfth minute is, unfortunately, spoiled by Kenny's lead in the thirteenth. The final two-and-a-half minutes feel like industrial sci-fi soundtrack music within which multi-voiced vocals are implanted. My second favorite song on the album. (26.25/30)

8. "Line of Sight" (12:32) opens with a sound and feel that reminds me of the energy and in-your-face music of Swedish band BROTHER APE's 2010 masterpiece, A Rare Moment of Insight. Over the course of its twelve-and-a-half minutes my assessment changes little (though B4tF's vocals are nowhere in the same league as Brother Ape)--though again I am quite often reminded of Dutchman Chris Van der Linden's FOURTEEN TWENTYSIX project. Nice PETER GABRIEL-like drum programming throughout--and YES-like vocals in the final two minutes. Nice ending to the album. My third top three song. (21.5/25)

There is an unmistakable 80s-ishness to the music here--especially the stylings and treatments of the vocals. I also found myself often reminded of Kevin MOORE's CHROMA KEY project of 1998-2004. Nice music but not quite top tier. There is something not quite right in the recording, engineering, and/or mixing of the vocals. Perhaps they need to have a professional engineer in a professional studio with an outside-the-band producer involved in their recording projects in order to provide some objective inputs.

B/four stars.