Published on Jul 16, 1998
With the apparent resurgence of progressive rock these days,
there seems to be a natural outgrowth of the genre to include
elements of popular music into the rich arrangements. Attempts are
made at writing shorter songs with catchy riffs and choruses. And
while this is a nice change of pace, it’s going to be some time
before such a shift feels natural.
For Houston, Texas-based Pangaea, you can hear some of the
progress in their music. And while their second full-length disc
Welcome To The Theatre… showcases some of this progress,
it also shows the weaknesses of both band and genre alike.
There are many moments on this disc that show the promise and
potential of Pangaea. Vocalist/guitarist Darrell Masingale is at
his finest on tracks like “The White Shaman,” featuring a solid,
Native American-influenced rhythm from drummer Andi Schenck. The
whole band (including keyboardist Corey Schenck and bassist Ron
Poulsen) demonstrates their talent on “Fanfare For One World,” an
instrumental track that tips its hat to Emerson, Lake & Palmer
without ripping them off.
Pangaea’s rock influences are clearly heard on tracks like “Dark
Room” and “Ride It Easy”, but occasionally their lyrics try to turn
cerebral but end up a tad banal, such as on “The Hobo, The Dog, And
The Moon” (even though the song itself is a decent number with a
catchy riff). Other times, this lyrical shift works, as evidenced
on their criticism of society today on “The Fall Of Rome”.
The experiments in pure progressive rock are the weaker moments
on
Welcome To The Theatre…. The basic song on the second half
of “Crimson” is a decent track, but it takes too long to develop
the basic track with the prelude “Lover”. And the spoken-lyric
track “The Nightmare,” while an interesting concept (the lyrics are
a palindrome – that is, they read the same forwards or backwards),
is not executed well at all. Masingale would have been better off
not reciting the lyrics on this one; it tends to make the track
that much weaker.
Sound-wise, Pangaea seems to rely far too much on the keyboard
work of Corey Schenck. While his work is good, I wouldn’t mind
hearing more guitar and bass farther up in the mix to create a more
pleasing blend to the ears. (Famed progressive rock producer Robert
Berry might have had a hand in this as well.) The only other
weakness with
Welcome To The Theatre… is it’s not the easiest album to
get into. Overall, I think I gave this disc five listens in the two
days prior to writing this review before things finally started to
click for me. Admittedly, progressive rock is much more challenging
for a listener, but it shouldn’t be this difficult to get into an
album. The first two times I tried listening to this disc, I found
myself tuning out before four tracks had passed – not the most
optimistic sign.
Welcome To The Theatre… does show Pangaea as a band that
will be a name to watch in the coming years, but they still have
some homework to catch up on. If you’ve got the time and energy to
apply to this one, it will prove to be a somewhat worthwhile
journey.