DIFFERENT POINT OF YOU

Alias Eye have delivered a brilliant follow-up to the excellent "Field of Names". Not much has changed here since the previous album, but as the saying goes: if it ain't broke, why fix it? The perfect marriage of pop and prog is still there, the flawless musicianship and excellent song composition remain - the magic lives on! Perhaps the biggest development of the style of the previous album is the inclusion of the funk-oriented "Fake The Right" and "The Usual Routine", both of which show yet another style that this band are capable of mastering. Another set of excellent songs from a band that are masters of their craft. If you are a fan of art-rock, pop/prog or groove-oriented prog, you won't find much better than Alias Eye.

A compilation of songs that is more interesting in its performance than in its compositional skills. A fine rendering of well played art-rock, with various musical points of view (get it?). However, that's about it, since none of these songs manage to gain lasting interest. This record does not leave the listener hot or cold. Anyway, thank God these Germans have included an English native speaker for vocal duties.

In a word, this album is "awesome". I'll admit it needs a few spins to really appreciate, but once you're hooked this album will stay in your playlist for a long time. There are very few bands that can write catchy melodies and flowing compositions but still have enough in each song to keep you coming back time and time again - some examples might be ACT, Sylvan or Threshold. Any reviewer that doesn't rate this album highly either doesn't appreciate this genre at all, or probably made the mistake of not listening to the album more than once - oh well, their loss! My advice would be to give this album a try and discover the best that art rock has to offer.

I'm listening to "Your Other Way" right now, on my second spin directly after the first!. This is a very inspiring song. I have discovered a new band today, and their name is: Alias Eye. I can hear hints of Yes in the vocal hooks, Rothery/Gilmour guitar solos, there is saxaphone sections that sound fantastic. This has a LOT of Beatles influences to my ear too, with guitars especially. This is art-rock of the highest calibur as others have said. This music is so pleasing to the ears, it defines the word "melodic". Melodic as in relaxing. I could so easily play this music at bedtime and sleep well into the next day, after being so relaxed by this group. There is not a bad song, not a bad section, nothing is out of place. It is as perfect as this type of symphonic prog/art-rock will get. The singer does not scream. The lyrics have meaning, and they do not sound accented (so I can make them out). And they are not in a different language, as I and a lot of others I know do not speak German etc they don't want to learn it just to understand a few prog lyrics when there is so many bands already that sing in English and have great works. Alias Eye are the best German act in prog, imho. RPWL the best Dutch band, and PFM the best Italian band!. Buy this album you really won't regret it.

I do agree with those who think the album is absolutely GREAT, it contains the perfect mixture of prog, pop and hard rock. It doesn't get bound to any style in particular, just floats between styles, taking what it needs to make the album even better than its predecessor.

The songs show a very wide range of possibilities, from the arabic tone of "A Clown's Tale", or the awesome slightly funky "Fake The Right", to the slow beautiful "play-it-again-Sam" sort of song that sets the excellent closure for the album. However, the most balanced and mature song is, as it's been said before, "Your Other Way", which stands for the perfect front door to get yourself into the band.

Philip Griffiths's vocals are simply perfect, his voice just fits in, evolving with the music in equal terms, working for the song and expressing its magnificence all the way!!! There is also remarkable the guitars, whose sound provides an excellent counterpoint to Griffith's voice, as a second singer joining the band when the frontman lets the music on its own. No Yngwie-I'm-the-guitar-mastah style whatsoever, though.

In every spin you give the CD, you find out new elements that testify for the maturity this band has reached by far. Just check it out, I love it, and it doesn't occur so often.

I read a lot of good reviews about Alias Eye and their 2003 release called Different Point of You. A number of reviewers referred to them an "pop-prog," and I'd have to strongly agree with them on this point. Alias Eye to me is sort of like a modern version of Supertramp, but not as skilled at songwriting. They sound very little like Supertramp. It's just the song-oriented approach is similar. So, the music is highly accessible, but it does have a wide variety of styles. Singer Philip Griffiths sounds like a mix of Michael Sadler (Saga) and Maurits Kalsbeek (Egdon Heath).

The first track, A Clown's Tale, kind of reminded me of a heavier version of Van der Graaf Generator with some Jethro Tull influences. I believe that was mostly from the sax. It's a nice song to start things off with. The second track, Fake the Right, is pretty much straight ahead rock, with some minor VDGG influences, especially at the ending. Your Other Way is kind of like a ballad in parts. After 3:00 it gets much better with some nice piano and some beautiful Spanish guitar. The fourth track, Icarus Unworded, is my second favorite song on this album, sounding part Floydian, part Ayreon, and somewhat Beatlesque in places. Great song!

With the fifth track, I start losing interest. Usual Routine is mostly rock, changes styles in the middle of the song, and has a nice piano solo. Drifting is an acoustic guitar/piano ballad. Nice, but my attention is beginning to drift away. On the Fringe is average and has a piano/orchestral feel to it. It's not particularly good and loses the energy from the previous songs. The eighth track, The Great Open, is much heavier than the previous songs, has some great guitar solos and a slight neo-prog feel to it. This song has a lot of energy and is the best on the album. The ending track, Too Much Toulouse, is kind of like lounge music with the emphasis on the piano. Not a particularly memorable track.

Overall, I thought this was a nice release. There aren't too many other words that pop into my head to describe this. It's not "proggy" enough for me and that's because it's "pop-prog." Easily fits into the "good, but not essential" category, thus three stars.

As I have mentioned in their debut album "Field of names" review that I only know the band, even the name of the band, just recently or quite honest with you .. during year end of 2007 when I met my prog colleague Hardiansyah Rizal during his visit to Indonesia. "Is this metal ?" that was my first question to him and he said it's progressive. I was then listening to the "Field of Names" album. My first reaction was that the music is so tidy and tight, with great harmony and nice melody. In a way, I remember the music of Little Atlas when I first heard this album for the first time. Of course, it's not exactly the same. For sure, the music of Alias Eye is to me more catchy than Little Atlas. I then had another chance to spin the second album "Different Point of You" and still I am satisfied with the music. I believe they are consistent in the music direction of their music. Not much different than the first album, this is another peaceful music. The only thing I can mention is that the band is much more sounding like Kansas in its simpler term than the debut album. The band is quite exploratory by adding some eastern nuance (listen to track 1: "A Clown's Tale" (6:50) ) as well as jazz components (track 5: "The Usual Routine" (4:40)).

I do not want to review track by track but for sure, listening to this album is very entertaining. Yes, some tracks sound very poppy and you might be questioning why this album is considered as prog music. But, if you enjoy the flow of the music you will find some breaks with different styles that make a different experience. The other experience you might find is when you play the music with loud volume using a decent sound system, you can get the subtleties of the music and great soundscapes. I have to say that the production (sonic quality) of this album is excellent. I have enjoyed this album also using a Sennheiser headset PX 100 model and I fing an ultimate joy of this album.

Overall, it's an excellent addition to any prog music collection that you should not miss. If you do not like prog music, bear with me, you would enjoy this album as well. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

A Different Point of You is Alias Eye's–a southern Germany band–second full-fledged studio album. Although not near excellence, A Different Point of You is definitely a very interesting recording, mainly because you don’t get to hear too many bands playing similar to what Alias Eye shows here. Or maybe I haven’t heard too much crossover prog so far… Nonetheless, what I really like about this album is the gathering of other than typical rock sounds: a saxophone (one of my favorite instruments), contrabass and couple of interesting keyboards effects, including my second favorite piano.

Although Phillip Griffiths–son of Martin Griffiths of Beggar’s Opera–voice is quite interesting and fits into the album style quite neatly and he’s operating it well, the vocals are not enchanting. So, what really captivates me here is the instrumental layer. The CD begins with a great oriental saxophone line backed up by the keyboard, which resembles the opening theme for the Rome TV series, followed shortly by the rest of instruments and Philip’s voice. Indeed A Clown’s Tale shines as the best track of the album due to the oriental style and of course sax. Fake the Right on the other hand is based on a wacky slightly distorted guitar riff that resembles Les Claypool style so much that I would have said that’s him playing if it would be the bass at work here, while the vocals sounds quite like early 90s Tom Jones, especially refrains. That’s pretty much how I imagined crossover prog to sound like when I first read about it. I’ve also seen this song described as a pop-prog on the Web. The third track, Your Other Way, is also a pretty nice pop-like song with an interesting Spanish guitar and an accordion sound– keyboard effect I suppose.

Unfortunately, starting from the fourth song Icarus Unworded the CD is getting less interesting and, although the songs are well played, there’s nothing there to get excited about. There’s again Tom Jones-like The Usual Routine, a bit boring ballad Drifting and simply mediocre On the Fringe. With The Great Open the band tries some more rock-like playing, featuring quite interesting guitar solo in the middle, but the lack of variety of instruments puts me off here, as the unobtrusive presence of brass instruments and wacky keyboard effects is what I originally liked in this album and all this song features are sparse piano parts. The album closes Too Much Toulouse, a slow although interesting lounge, that would be great for an ending if only the tracks leading towards it would bear a bit more energy, because when I finally got to it I was already half asleep half bored.

To sum it up, this is a good recording with a handful of interesting songs fitting nicely into the crossover prog definition. The album begins with couple of really great tracks and ends with two good songs, but the middle part is quite ordinary and easily slips by. Nevertheless, I’d say A Different Point of You is definitely worth listening to as long as you keep your expectations at a moderate level.

Melodic VdGG without crazy factor ? Or at least some tracks here seems like it to me. Songs aren't all the same, they differ a lot, but with one uniting element, specific guitar solos. Nice ones, like in Neo-prog. But every one of these songs have something weird (and interesting) inside, saxophone (you'll understand if you listen it) in surprising song Fake the Right, or accordion in Your Other Way (it has to be good old acco, what else) . To put it simply, this music is breathtaking, I feel like in land where my dreams are fulfilled, because this music has everything I want. Melody, good instruments handling skill, diversity of these musical instruments, listen-able vocals, quite long songs (but not so long to make epic song) and is tasty at all.

5(-) for wonderful music that can bring very various music into your life.

Alias Eye is one of the pleasent surprises I've come across lately, knowing this band not for long, around last year being very impressed by their music and by the vocalist too. The vocalist Philip Griffiths is the son of the singer from Beggars Opers ( a symph prog band from early '70's ) being here very sure of his talent and has some magnific vocal arrangements. The music Alias Eye offers is something between Saga, some neo prog elements remind me of dutch Egdon Heath, and overall is pretty good record. The pieces are well constructed right from the beggining I was struck by opening track A Clown's Tale with an arabian feel embraced by heavy riffs and pleasent arrangements, here the voice of Philip Griffiths truly shines, are some traces in his voice taken from his father tone, specially when he reaches high notes, but as a whole he is a fantastic singer. Anothe rexcellent piece is The Great Open, simply brilliant track, full of super musicianship and inventiv passages. Also there are some piano interludes and even saxophone passages, that goes very well in this context, from melacholic side to a more happier moments, Alias Eye did it with this album for sure. To me this second release from 2003 - Diffrent point of you is more mature as the debute as shows strong musicianship and excellent vocal moments. This is accessible and yet pleasent progressive rock album that may not be as challenging as some other albums or bands from neo prog zone but in the end is a quite rewarding record that will please many listners. 4 stars for sure. Great cover art aswell.

Like their previous album "Field Of Names" I find this to have some good songs that are fairly straightforward. Some guest Spanish guitar on one track as well as sax on two songs.

"A Clown's Tale" is my favourite, I think because i've heard it before on some compilation cd. It opens with crickets and the sound of a party in the background as sax comes in then the full band.Vocals are next and a fairly heavy rhythm. A catchy tune with some good guitar as well. "Fake The Right" opens with guitar as sax and a full sound kick in including vocals. Not a fan of this one at all. "Your Other Way" features the Spanish guitar as well as keys, a beat and vocals. A mid paced tune with harmonies. "Icarus Unworded" opens with piano as reserved vocals join in. Some lazy guitar melodies follow with light drums. Not a big fan of this one. "The Usual Routine" is catchy with a bit of spice.

"Drifting" is a short song with acoustic guitar to start as fragile vocals join in. A mellow tune. "On The Fringe" opens with pulsating experimental sounds as keys then vocals join in.The experimental sounds fade away.The tempo picks up after a minute with synths coming and going. Not a fan of the backing vocals. "The Great Open" opens with synths washing in as reserved vocals come in. It does kick in pretty good before 3 minutes and even more a minute later. "Too Much Toulouse" is not the best way to end the album,at least for my tastes.

Not as good as "Field Of Names" (3 stars) hence the rating of 2 stars.