FRACTALS AND FILIGREE

After listening this album, I understand why Crossover Prog. Because this album has everything, with its advantages and disadvantages. Symphonic, Folk, even Funk - The Visitor Pop, Blues - Crazy Dog, Rock'n'Roll, Swing, Soul, Jazz, common Rock, circus like song - one part of The Cyclone (you know them when you hear them), Atmospheric sounds - beginning of Sangius Draconis which then continues into mixture of different styles. Even some undefinable things like Can't You Feel It, which reminds me Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" a little bit.

You understand now why I called it "everything" ? I used this term few times. Not so often, but I did that. But this time, it's the first time I feel that its true meaning has come through.

Everything is with (sometimes) wild keyboards set even looser on their lash. Vocals are pleasant (when they should be, they're raw'n'wild when they have to be - Sangius...), even they're bit too same, I mean the same way of singing.

I suppose that this project was very fun to make. Maybe its makers were even trying to mix as many genres/styles as possible, waiting to see how it will end up and how listeners will take this. Yes, I'm aware that this probably sounds like capital punishment, doom judgment of some kind. But nah, I like it, it has power/energy, it's unique mixture and it's pleasant to listen.

Hehe, there are even classical-like songs.

And most importantly, it's for free, so what else you want to hear ? Go for it.

3(+), hehe. Charming, really charming and sometimes breatktaking.

They sure know their 70's as far as music goes, this US band. And FRACTAL ROCK may just be a perfect band name for an outfit creating such a debut effort as "Fractals and Filigree" as well, seeing that one aspect of a fractal is that "It is too irregular to be easily described in traditional ... language".

Which more or less can be seen as a good general description of the 17 efforts offered by this band on their debut effort. Offered in a true sense of the word, as the band has chosen to let anyone interested download this production for free from their homepage.

What we're dealing with here, is a band that explores several different aspects of 70's rock music. Or at least compositions with a strong inspiration from this decade in general, and the first half of it in particular. Laidback funk-tinged efforts, heavy blues and rock versions of classical or classically inspired compositions are the three main directions explored, alongside a few selected efforts with more of a basis in symphonic progressive rock. The organ is the central instrument throughout, guitars have more of a secondary role throughout while the bass guitar more often than not does a fine job of keeping up momentum in a neat collaboration with steady drumming. A few numbers of a more experimental non-defining nature are added to this already varied and mixed bag of treats.

Personally I found this album to be a mixed bag in general. Some numbers just didn't manage to compel my musical taste buds, others suffered a bit too much by the mix - especially in the opening parts of this album I thought the vocals had a tendency to be drowned out by the instruments.

When that is said, there are a fair number of treats to be found here too. The light, melodic quirkiness of Falling up the Well is a brilliant art rock number, and their take on Mussorgsky's Night on the Bare Mountain in second to last track The Cyclone is another gem that many will be charmed by. And with a good handful or so of other pieces that can be described as intriguing and interesting, this is a pretty good first effort overall. And yet another example of a band it will be interesting to follow, as there is a lot of promise and talent in this first endeavour of theirs.

I'd recommend anyone with a soft spot for 70's art rock and symphonic rock to spend the time to download and listen to this creation. It's a free release that contains a fair number of good tracks, and the band want their music to be heard.

'Fractals And Filigree' - Fractal Rock (6/10)

The debut album of a US art rock band calling themselves Fractal Rock, 'Fractals And Filigree' is nothing, if not incredibly diverse. Taking the sounds of classic rock and a great many other styles of yesteryear, and compiling them in an eighty minute trek of music, this is quite an ambitious project for a band's first project. However, despite proving that the band is evidently very adventurous, the end result is an album that is very hit-or-miss in the way it turns out, making for an inconsistently enjoyable piece of work.

Led onward by the vocals of singer Kristine Tibbs (whose voice is oddly reminiscent of Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick), the music cycles through everything from classic progressive rock, to blues, to even a number that could have been in 'Chicago' or some other Broadway musical. Overall, while I understand that the band is testing the grounds quite a bit with this one, it does feel incredibly scattered, and the songs as a result have very little flow to them.

The songwriting is fairly good here- but as always for this album- deathly inconsistent, ranging from excellent (especially towards the second half of the album) to forgettable. On top of the album feeling a bit too long for its own good, the album's structure is in a state of great disrepair, but it doesn't stop Fractal Rock from delivering a good first impression with this debut album.