AD INFINITUM

This is a very decent album with numerous obvious classic seventies influences that the band readily admits to, but no blatant rip-offs that I can detect. The keyboard arrangements show definite Wakeman leanings, and other reviewers have cited Genesis as well, although I don’t hear that much myself. Maybe a little on “A Winter’s Tale”, but this is more with the vocals than the keyboards or guitars. A bit of a ‘Wind & Wuthering’ kind of thing going with that one.

A little Kansas and Starcastle too, particularly with “Neither Here nor There”, but these guys are nowhere in the same league as Kansas in their prime. I’ve also read some reviews that cite an Ambrosia influence, but again – I don’t hear this.

In all this is a very pleasant album to listen to on a quiet afternoon, but not anything that will really captivate you. The band members apparently intentionally crafted this to be a sort of tribute to their seventies progressive and symphonic rock heroes, and to be honest if I had the musical ability I wouldn’t mind doing something like this myself, so who am I to fault them?

It is interesting that I have at least four albums in my collection by musicians who released them with the expressed intent of ‘recreating’ that seventies music in a more modern setting: ‘A Place in the Queue’ from the Tangent; Steve Morse Band’s ‘Major Impact’; Flower Kings ‘Retropolis’; and this one. All of them show obvious and strong influences of bands like Yes, Genesis, and – well, those two mostly. Add Kansas and Deep Purple in the case of Steve Morse I suppose, but those are givens. All of these albums have been alternately praised and panned for their efforts, with critic’s comments ranging from “respectfully faithful” to “blatant clone”. But all of these albums are also distinctly different in their approach, which tells me that the principles of progressive music theory and emotion have very broad and deep bounds indeed.

Key tracks here include the opening title song, primarily for the excellent keyboards and ranging vocals; the ten-minute “A Winter's Tale” which like I said is the one track that does actually sound a bit like late-seventies Genesis; the guitars (including quite a bit of acoustic) on “All Hallow's Eve”; and the lengthy “Neither Here nor There” with its pleasant tempo shifts and vocals that actually do sound like they were recorded in 1973 or so.

Weak tracks? Mostly “Overland”, which has some lively keyboard work but doesn’t manage to rise to much more than an overly-inflected AOR rock tune.

The Roger Dean cover is an obvious plus here as well, and like I said – I personally don’t see any reason to knock a few guys who decided to include a tribute to their musical influences in their discography. There’s nothing overly original here, but it is a well- crafted body of music that has no major flaws either. And as near as I can tell none of these guys has done anything as good since, so kudos to them for getting this one right at least. Three stars seems appropriate – nothing particularly special, but worth having in your collection if you come across it. Recommended to neo-prog fans and to other progressive music fans who appreciate the classics, but who also aren’t too purist or overly-pretentious in their expectations. If your name is Pompious Blowhardius, you probably should skip this one.

peace