OPPORTUNITY CROSSES THE BRIDGE

3.5 stars really!!!

Recorded with the same line-up and one year later than their debut album, Opportunity Crosses The Bridge, this album might just FE's wackiest of all. Bearing 29 tracks (!!) in all, the longer ones are all clocking well under the 3 minutes mark, bar two of the three closers at 4 minutes, this album is some sort of concept with short interludes bearing chemical elements on Mendeleev's tables as names. I'm guessing the artwork photo is Rome's Coliseum, taken from the inside between the outer and inner shell.

Claiming to be recorded live in the studio with no overdubs over just two days, it's clear that FE is about performance and tightness, pulling very few actual solos. Musically the "longer" tracks are somewhat very similar to the debut album (read that review), but the small interludes are almost more interesting than the main tracks, themselves. Indeed,Boron, Radium and Einsteinium being weird drones somewhere between organ and harmonium, Antimony, Carbon, Tin and Neon being effect-laden marimba pieces sometimes with other percussions, Hydrogen a percussive mix of tubular bells and bass drum beats, Mercury is an electric piano twiddle, Oxygen sounding like a harmonium recorded backwards with weird percussions and Phosphorus is drum and straight piano ditty. One of the oddity for FE on this album is the track with a narration, the only non-instrumental in their early discography. On The Way To Chartres even reminds me a bit of Velvet Underground's The Gift, as the narration starts first, than the group comes in, retires, appears again as the recited text continues, overflowing in the closing Bye Bye Barbie.

Although at first listen OCTB might seem fairly different, it is just as good as the first album, but doesn't differ that much from it either, after repeated listenings. Those very same listenings will become a bit more arduous as the repetition of their unpredictability ends up creating the opposite effect and there is weariness by the ¾ mark of this album, saved a bit by the spoken finale. Certainly worth an attentive listen, more than that is up to you.

Say what you want about Forever Einstein, but no one can dispute that they are the kings of the song title. Granted, when writing instrumentals, you can name the song whatever you like, but some of FE's titles are just amazing. Who can compete with Everybody Here Is Broke So Stop Complaining, OK?, My Friends Made Fun Of My Pants, This Is America, Why Should I Have To Mow My Own Lawn? and the ever popular Hercules Pushes Giant Goats Over The Cliff And Watches As They Fall Into The Canyon Below?

The music here is in exactly the same vein as their debut CD, Artificial Horizons. Most of the songs are short compositions, based around the amplified and sometimes effects laden acoustic guitar of C.W. Vrtacek (Charles O'Meara). The songs, like on the first album, sound like a stripped down version of Discipline-era King Crimson, but with a more RIO thought process behind the writing.

Like the first album, this is a very nice listening album.