Published on Apr 2, 2001
Say this for Spock’s Beard; they keep you guessing.
Progressive rock has one huge fault; going to extremes. If you
go too far into the ozone, you end up with twenty-nine minute
keyboard flatulations. (See a good deal of Yes’s catalog,). If you
go too far towards the four minute world of radio play, you
get…well…pop music. (See Alan Parsons’
Ammonia Avenue CD.)
By the time their last CD,
Day From Night, came out, the boys in the Beard had gotten
the balance down pat. Quick, tight songs like “Skin” balanced
perfectly with longer opii like “Crack The Big Sky”. So the
question remained, as I put
V on my CD player for the first time, could the balance be
maintained?
Well…like I said, they keep you guessing. The answer is
no. Not really. Except…well…
I hate reviewing CDs like this.
See, it’s all in how you phrase the question. If you ask, “Is
V a good progressive rock CD, as most progressive fans view
the genre?” the answer is, “Yes”. If you ask, “Hey, Duke, we know
you’re a schmuck, but tell us, did you like this as well as
Day From Night?”, the answer is, “Uh, no.”
What Spock’s Beard did right was, as usual, stellar
musicianship. I think SB may be the single most talented group of
pure musicians currently performing, and they nail every single
thing they try to do on
V. Every note, every riff, every bizarre shift to new
weirdness (say, the Spanish guitar and organ break on “At The End
Of The Day” or the Ets-ate-my-string-quartet intro to “Revelation”)
works. It’s like watching Mark McGwire hit a home run or Michael
Jordan dunk; it’s perfection so matter-of-fact you grow to expect
it. My only criticism is for keyboardist Ryo Okumoto: yes, Kansas
had some neat organ parts, didn’t they? Do you have to sound THAT
much like a refugee from
Leftoverture? Right, it’s minor, move on.
What they did wrong is harder to quantify. There aren’t any bad
songs on this disc, but I knew we were in trouble when after three
listens I went, “What was the name of that song again?” There’s
just not much identity or passion to
V. It’s clinical to the point of being almost…but not
quite…sterile. This is the hardest thing for a music critic
to describe; when you listen to a CD and it sounds OK, it seems OK,
but there’s somehow a heart missing to it that you can’t quantify.
All I can say is what I’ve said. There’s something missing. Only
“Revelation” and “Goodbye To Yesterday” come close to showing real
passion.
Spock’s Beard is one of my favorite bands, and it’s hard to give
them a review that’s less that glowing. But in this case, it’s not
as good as it could be, and it’s missing something.
V still is recommended for Spock’s Beard fans and
progressive rock fans, but if you want an introduction to what Neal
Morse and company are capable of, stick to
Day For Night.