THE THOMAS TRACKS

The Thomas Tracks, by 5 Bridges is an all to familiar sight in the world of todays progressive music: a lead vocalist determined to sound JUST LIKE Peter Gabriel, a keyboardist who sounds JUST LIKE Tony Banks and a guitarist who sounds JUST LIKE Steve Hackett.

This album sounds like they were trying to recreate their favourite elements of 'Selling England by the Pound' in every song. In fact, every song kind of sounds the same.

The problem with these bands is that while they are starry-eyed, softly kissing up to Genesis, with love permeating through every note, phrase and syllable, they lack something that Genesis had in the first place. We know that 5 Bridges, Big Big Train, Unitopia, Knight Area, TCP, Marillion and others are immitating Genesis, the vocalist usualy straining hard to get Peter Gabriels phrasing, but who were Genesis immitating?

Back in 1973, when Genesis cut 'Selling England by the Pound', they may have been 'influenced' by other people, but it was THEIR sound, their INSPIRATION and ORIGINAL IDEAS. These bands aren't coming up with those things.

The end result means that usually all these bands have going for them in the end are flashes of brilliant instrumental music and tehcnical ability. In fact the compositions on this album are complex, but are lacking inspiration and are not memorable. The vocals are poor, with some very weak pronunciation of words, for example 'anudda' instead of 'another', and the vocals are generally a bit hard to understand.

Here is a song by song analysis:

Didymus - A great track by this albums standards. Begins with eerie electric piano, then there is some singing that is similar to that near the start of 'Dancing out with the Moonlit Knight'. There is also some nice fusing with techno, an original idea for a change. Good riffs - 7 / 10 Babylon Curse Reversed - nothing inspiring - 3/10 On Calpe's Rock - Again, a highlight for this album. Begins with some nice piano, a bit like that near the start of 'Firth of fifth', and develops into a nice, gentle song - 6 / 10 The spell of eternity - trying to be 'The Battle of Epping Forest' with London accents and the like, but some excellent instrumental music - 4/10 Martialis' reveries - a brief but beautiful song - 7/10 Tricks and treason - some good riffs but not very good - 3.5 / 10 Lovernius' song - An intro into the next song - 2/10 Batavians revolt - it's complex but drags on for almost 12 minutes without any real inspiration - 1/10 Amazons and haven - Not an amazing song, but the instrumental music in the last third of the song is quite powerful - 4/10 Sign on the wall - a bit more laid back than the others - 4.5/10

Overall, the guitarist is excellent, comes up with some excellent riffs and ideas, and the keyboardist is neat too, and the band is good. The songs all sounds the same, however, and a lot of the ideas aren't that memorable. 3/10

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