GAZE

Bought this on ebay following the seller's review, but if I had the chance to preview this album, it woud've never reached my CD rack.

First of all, the singer voice is absolutely annoying, he strains his vocal cords trying to inject some feeling on the words he says; at first, you wonder what Cross is trying to do with the songs, later you realize that he has no idea for any interesting melody so he stretch the vocals for the lenght of the songs, more or less following the often unnecessarily complex rhythms.

The playing is at least good, with particular mention to keys and guitar work, but the production is at times too over the top and pomp-y, especially when the synths are on in full mode.

If only they had good material they could go instrumental, but this is not the case...

This album was reviled immediately on release and is still being reviled. Reviled by all together, in the yo-heave-ho mode. Try to find a positive feedback about this album, and you will seek very long. And it's not too hard to understand why. Gaze is too experimental for neo-prog. I don't mean experimental rhythms (though yes the rhythm is changing unexpectedly, unpredictably and even absurdly from time to time), or arrangements, or instrumentation, but experiments in melody making and musical theme constructing. Cannot say exactly whose manner all those illogical, discording, sometimes almost ugly sequences of accords, all those 'dissonances in consonance' could remind. Maybe a sort of Penderecki, Shchedrin and Ginastera rebuilt for neo-prog. Gaze is not typical for Hansi Cross and far from what he did before; on the other hand, it is discomfortable for most of listeners' ears (otherwise it would not be criticized so much). But perhaps it may serve as a sort of experimental base, most likely on subconscious level, in the 'listened - disliked - rejected from memory - took a lesson' mode. This album can widen a musician's idea of what actions upon musical sounds are allowed. Of course Hansi Cross himself took all possible lessons from his own work, and what was illogical and absurd in Gaze turned into a logical and harmonious form on the later (and rated much higher) albums from Cross. But I also heard some echoes of Gaze, not obvious of course, in a few 2000s - 2010s releases from other artists, for example in Glass Hammer's Ode To Echo and Valkyrie, and in the late albums from Moongarden. Though there's a chance that the members of Glass Hammer and/or Moongarden never listened to Gaze before, but I think there's a greater chance that they did...