THE LAST GREAT ADVENTURER

1. "Alive" (8:20) sounds like something straight out of the 1980s. I don't really like the poppy NEW ORDER vocals and computer-enhanced/added drums. Solid instrumental section in the third quarter turns mushy when the band has to switch back to 4/4 time in order to accommodate the guitar solo of Lee Abraham. The finish is just airbowling till the 80s finish. (16.75/20)

2. "Omega Lights" (10:05) (17.25/20): - Part One: Λ - 90s keyboard sounds through the filter of 21st Century computers opens this and plays on for three and a half VANGELIS-like minutes. - Part Two: Ω - a bluesy Steve Hackett/The Who-like pulsing sound comes out of the Part One intro. Never comes to anything special (especially with such an awful chorus); totally unfulfilled potential. Even the big shift at the 7:00 mark does nothing to excite.

3. "Blood Skin and Bone" (8:17) opens with the first minute sounding like something from 1980s pop-experimenting TANGERINE DREAM before shifting into a hypnotic Pete Shelley-sounding piece. Again, the chorus takes us away from the good stuff, dumbs it down into something mundane. I actually like the variable-speed tempo used in the beginning of instrumental passage starting at the end of the fourth minute--and it remains engaging even when they lock it in for another Lee Abraham guitar solo. At 5:25 when break down for a walk through the fair ("the human freak show"), Stu continues a narration-like commentary on our human species (which sounds like a priest's two-pitch singing of the text of the High Mass). Then we bounce back into a smoothed-out PET SHOP BOYS-like version of the chorus. Some good, some banal. (17.5/20)

4. "Enclosure 1764" (4:07) sounds so dramatic--as if it comes from some theatric stage production. What is Stu singing about--something from British history? (8.25/10)

5. "The Last Great Adventurer" (10:35) four chord rock supports a really simply written homage to Stu's father. (Stu is no poet; he's more of a observational narrator.) I agree with Thomas Szirmay: the instrumental passage in the eighth minute has a very STEELY DAN feel to it before the Traffic/Canterbury keyboard enters. And Lee Abraham's solo in the ninth minute really builds and soars. The contemplative jazzy section in the tenth minute is interesting--especially when Stu tries to croon the same lyrics as before over/within it. (17/20)

6. "Normality of Distance" (5:50) * piano and keyboard "orchestra"-supported ballad for Stu to sing in a pop-theatre way. It's like a heart-strings-pulling ballad from the 1970s. (Think "Shannon" ao something from AIR SUPPLY.) (8/10)

7. "Another Life Not Lived" (7:55) * 1980s electric guitar arpeggi in revers and slow forward joined by piano to slow build as Stu lays down his best vocal of the album--strained, acrobatic, and nuanced. But then the power chords enter and dominate--diminishing the power and centrality of Stu's vocal. Luckily this only occurs for the choruses. Several times the vocal melody comes devastatingly close to replicating Roger Hodgson's from the Supertramp song "A Soapbox Opera"--and then the guitar solo is too close to something by David Gilmour. The best song on the album (or is it ... on the album?). (13.5/15)

Total Time 55:09

* bonus tracks on CD

B-/3.5 stars; a nice addition to any prog lover's music collection--especially if your of the NeoProg prog persuasion.

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