THE GREAT DECEPTION

Pittsburgh-based musician, composer and vocalist John Crispino is the only man behind this project, launched around 2011, when he started writing a concept story about a man, living in a future world, dominated by hate, corruption and war.As he handled the drums and keyboard effects on the album, he invited several artists to participate like King Crimson's Warr guitarist Trey Gunn and Vanilla Fudge's bassist Tim Bogert.The list of guests is quite long (about 10 more names), including performances on piano, guitars, bass, trumpet and vocals.The album ''The great deception'' was released digitally in March 2013.

Being a sci-fi concept work, ''The great deception'' demanded a set of appropriate musical soundscapes to pass through as well as a strong lyrical background for the listener to properly follow the storyline.This effort apparently was based on a standard contemporary PINK FLOYD-PORCUPINE TREE mixture of heavy, spacious and modern textures, which offers a palette of slow Heavy Rock, ambiental moods and electronic spices.But the addition of futuristic elements, like loops, vocal and instrumental distortions and pre-recorded vocal messages was considered as needed by Crispino.Let's set things straight by saying that this rather far from a Progressive Rock work in the way that we know it.No complex themes, sudden tempo switches or instrumental excess.''The great deception'' is a vocal-heavy modern Space/Electronic Rock album with some cosmic and heavier overtones, pretty easy-going in terms of structure and strongly relying on the combination of sampled and natural sounds and the display of intense atmospherics.Having chosen a path of lyrical inventiveness (which at moments reminds me of DAVID BOWIE's unique coziness), Crispino has made a drawback regarding his first attempt's instrumental depth.Some powerful rhythms, spacious ambiences and laid-back tunes are still charming, but the selection of a mass of digital soundscapes along with the rather straightforward approach on songwriting are not my cup of tea.Not to mention that some vocal parts still sound pretty dull and poppy.Of course the artist's concept background is more significant than what anybody wants to hear from an album for himself, but the result is close to instrumentally too thin and even monotonous, buried by the endless hypnotic, downtempo parts.

An attempt on hypnotic Electronic Rock with sparse heavier echoes and lots of futuristics sounds on vocals and instruments.When the lyrical department becomes more attractive than the music itself, then something is propably going wrong.At some point, rcommended only to fans of PINK FLOYD or STEVEN WILSON's side projects...2.5 stars.