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Beautiful World

I am soaring and flying, because there is magic on this album. In a few songs here the East is united with the West. Not since Alice in Chains brought the heavy to grunge have I heard such a thudding, beautiful sound. While Out Of My Mind has lived up to its title in my own personal record collection, this is one I’m freaking out over and talking to people about.
The Middle Eastern atonal craziness that is the aptly-titled lead-off track (“Reformation”) does not permeate every second of this 13-song album ... and this is unfortunate. After this fanciful flight I do come hurtling back down to earth after not too many songs, and I’m listening to average modern rock. Average is not bad, mind you (it’s good!) – it’s just being done by many others. The song “Personal Renaissance” needs to be pointed out as well, because the passion in the lyrics in places is bursting out of the chest as powerful as Springsteen at his finest: “Somewhere a man is taking the first kiss from the mouth of his bride / somewhere someone just got divorced...” It’s just a few lines, but it also soars high. “Venom” starts up the progressive action again, with fat finger picking on the bass and those wailing vocal drones followed by a sideways falsetto accent a la Marilyn Manson. Nice. And Kevin Max would be proud of the high falsetto notes hit in the tail end of the rocked out finish to “Dream.” Vocalist Benjamin Shreve really stretches on this disc. I hear Robert Plant (& Page) stylings in the trippy and plodding ballad “Wildflower,” and the magic of a tune like “Kashmir” is hinted at (thanks to Mister Sitar player, Chris Freeman) in the hypnotic album closer – “Sing Until The Song Sings You.”
I’m okay with not having an album for the ages, because I’ve got a few songs that make me completely delirious. I’m a happy and grateful boy. [Spindust /Doug Van Pelt]

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