EMOTIONAL CREATURES - PART ONE

After THE SALAMANDER PROJECT successful supported the neo prog band JADIS on their european tour, singer, songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Steve Thorne tries to get his solo career started. For his debut album Emotional Creatures Part One he engaged some eminently respectable guests. Nick d'Virgilio, Martin Orford and Tony Levin, just to name a few. But by no means at all this can be regarded as something like a supergroup. Steve Thorne wrote everything by himself and recorded most parts and instruments alone. The music on his debut can be described as a compound of neo prog, folk and pop. The label InsideOut states that the music is insprired by Peter Gabriel, Genesis and Roger Waters. Well, I don't think that I agree; to some degree but definitely not completely.

After the short, appropriate intro Here they come follows the ironical ballad God bless America: I'm so glad that we're friends, cos I don't wanna die...further comments required? Well, I find the vocals a bit to present, some would describe the song as cheesy but I think it's quite fair. Well outta that is much more powerful, the refrain is almost aggressive, at least compared to the general style of the album. Well, is it prog or not, I don't know. The only important thing is that I really like the song. Ten years features Nick d'Virgilio on drums, which keeps a low profile, though. An atmospherical song but I have to say that it's rather boring regarding the composition. What follows is a highlight, maybe the first song completely appendant on prog. I really like the vocals. The organ solo and Nick's drumming make the quite rocking song stand out, thumbs up. Julia is a ballad again, I think due to the great vocals it's ok but nothing special. The most catchy tune follows, Therapy is a good song but maybe one or two minutes too long, the refrain is repeated over and over again, as I said before, it's quite catchy, though. Every Second counts is an instrumental, apart from some voice samples in the fist half. Tony Levin on bass, but overall I wish the song had gained more momentum, somehow it makes no headway. Tumbleweeds reminds me of God bless America, features bathetic songwriter chords, though. It sounds as if Steve Thorne ran out of ideas. Fortunately Gone upvalues the impression again. A good rock song, nice guitar solos, great retro prog like keyboard parts in the background, maybe kind of banal but overall certainly one of the better songs. Ok, now the whole thing really gets kind of monotonous. The last song Goodbye sounds like the third version of God bless Amerika. The good vocals and the nice melody retrieves the song from being bad, but they on the other hand they don't make it good.

Well, Steve Thorne's debut isn't that bad, there's a good chance to dig the album if you like neo prog or melodic and atmospherical art pop and don't mind some really catchy parts. I really dig some of the songs but think that nearly all others are quite boring and hackneyed; apart from the vocals which I really like. There are some great musicians on this record but unfortunately they show their talent pretty rarely. So I think that the only adequate rating is 2.5 because I think that many people can enjoy the whole album even though I'm not one of them.

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