OUT OF THE BARNYARD

I've found this album in my discography and considered it an obscure item by its name and lack of publicity. My premonition was confirmed after hearing the album - it is an original piece of work indeed. It lacks the one-directional legacy burden and is rather pained by different colours, be it some 70's Gentle Giant/ELP, classical music, alternative rock or a millenium-driven Spock's Beard/Transatlantic (keyboards) and Symphony X (guitar). Any inspiration is cleverly baked in and masked behind adjacent layers of music.

The least interesting element in the chain are vocals which are passable and sparse, fortunately, for we have splendid instrumentation to look it. Keyboards and drumming stand out for me. The drummer is well-versed in myriad of styles and complexity levels. Keyboard are excellent, sometimes majestic, sometimes very technical and the sounds well chosen.

Some may object that music is incoherent because of so many different styles mixed in and they are right, you likely won't be remembering this album because of songwriting. For me, it was interesting trying to map what I heard to other bands I know and focusing on what's coming next to be heard. This is a daring album for adventurous listening. 3.5 stars