EARTHBOUND

not a waste of money nor a great musical experince

As this is the only Rocket Scientists album I have, I regret not being able to compare it to their other albums. But anyway i can writte a little about it. In my personal opinion this is a quite poppy album, with some progressive touches. I highlight 2 songs the first song : EarthBound is a really ice song with a chorus i really like,and has a really encouraging (yet too short) synthesizer part. but after all it isn't an outstanding song, just standard. track 11: wahat a good piece of music, and far superioir to the rest of the album! 56 secons of pleasure with acoustic and then electic guitar playing a rocker melody.

*PD* track seven is a pink floyd cover, but its the same song,they just added their vocals on it

Rocket Scientists first efford is an interesting album, but it seems they still did no know exactly what they wanted to do or how to do. The basic elements are all here: excellent musicanship, fair use of analog keyboards, tasteful arrangements, great melodic sense. Compared to latter day RS records, the songs on Earthbound are shorter, more accessible and there are less solos. It looked like the band was still shy to experiment more and show off the excellency of their talents. The music itself is quite pleasant and from the start Erik Norlander proves he is one of the best keyboardists of the new generation. His style derives much from Rick Wakeman´s. Mark McCrite is a fine singer and guitarrist. Some songs are better than the others, but none is bad. Highlights are Down Trodden, Avalon and Carry Me Home. Their cover of Pink Floyd´s Welcome To The Machine shows their superb skills and give a good sign of better things to come.

A very good album, solid 3 stars, but far from their best, more hard edeged symphonic works. Earthbound is recommended to the ones who like melodic prog with some AOR touches here and there. It actually gets better with each spin.

NOTE: Taken from my review of 'LOOKING BACKWARD'

Rocket Scientists' debut release. Of all of their releases, EARTHBOUND is the odd one of the bunch. It's not very progressive at all, instead showing a more 80's poprock influence (just listen to some of Norlander's keyboard accents). Also, Don Schiff only uses the Stick on three of the songs here, instead using a regular bass or sometimes a fretless (like on Down Trodden). Many of the songs are also shorter, and are written with commercialness in mind. The album's best moment comes with their cover of Pink Floyd's ''Welcome to the Machine'', the poppy ''Picture Show'', and the proggiest moment of the album: the 57-second instrumental ''Pythagoras''. This album is a bit of an aquired taste, but will still prove to be one of their most unique releases.

Pythagoras

The dark and haunting cover art might make you think we are dealing with a Black Metal album here, but that could hardly be further from the truth. The debut album of Rocket Scientists is perhaps best described as a Pop Prog album. I hear 80's and 90's Yes, The Beatles, and Pink Floyd (there is a cover of Floyd's Welcome To The Machine here), as well as American Symphonic Prog (80's Kansas, and perhaps Neal Morse?).

The history of Rocket Scientists goes back to the late 80's and they released this first album in 1993. This was the first out of countless albums that Erik Norlander would record and produce over the next couple of decades including many for Lana Lane who provides backing vocals to the present album. The songs are generally short and melodic. No doubt some people would say "commercial", but there is no denying the musicianship and progressive spirit present here. Several of the songs here would subsequently be improved and expanded upon in live format. The title track, Picture Show, Avalon, and Calm Before The Storm were all later featured on the excellent 1998 live album Earth Below And Sky Above in elongated and enhanced versions (one of which features Lana Lane on lead vocals). Also the short instrumental Pythagoras is featured on said live album as part of a medley.

For me, this album is fully listenable and enjoyable but perhaps not very impressive as such. As most would probably agree, even if the potential was clearly already here, the band had yet to find their own true identity. For me personally though, this album has other virtues that subsequent albums lack. All things considered, this album is - to my ears - every bit as good as its more well-known successors.

A good debut and the start of some great musical careers

"Earthbound" first studio albun from ROCKET SCIENTISTS in my opinion is a kind of disk comparable inside the band career just as "Killroy was Here" from STYX or "A" from Jetrho Tull, or in other words a weak and almost inexpressive work, and in very lowest level than their subsequent releases, as for instance the fantastic "Oblivion Days" from 1999, and certainly if you hear in first place this third album and after "Earthbund" (as in my case), probably not recognize the same band. Due to this considerations and in spite the musicians quality, my rate is only 2 stars !!!