UNDER STARS

John Mitchell (Lonely Robot) is a guitar player, singer and composer known for his contributions to Kino, Arena and Frost. His type of lead guitar has always impressed me a lot, especially on instrumental tracks like Arena's 'Elea' and '(This Way) Madness lies'. I've searched out his other projects as well, but I never been able to find much prove of his genius as a bandleader or main composer. Under the Lonely Robot-banner Mitchell released albums with some neo-prog hints sound-wise, whereas the songs take a more dream pop and alternative (space) rock direction. Because most of the often adult, lackluster and rather faceless material sounds so much alike here, the amazing echoey lead guitars don't impress me as much. Some of the better spacey songs would have definitely stood out more had there been some more straight-forward songs to contrast with. John Mitchell has a good voice, which is often hidden in layers of effects - which takes away from the feeling of listening to a performer. Still, this is very competent neo-prog related music that is produced rather well and released on the Inside Out label on cd and vinyl. Both synths and guitars sound amazing. You can even find an official version on YouTube with a full sci-fi themed lyric video of the complete album! Quite a service. To me this release sounds a bit too much like background music. However, if that dreamy sci-fi mystery vibe is your thing, you might just enjoy this quite a lot!