Something Strange - Something Strange


Year of Release: 1999
Label: self-released
Catalog Number: n/a
Format: CD
Total Time: 00:00:00

Something Strange is mainly the brainchild of a certain Paul Vincenti. It's a tale of what happens between moonrise and sunrise at a masquerade ball in a mysterious castle. Strange as it may seem I wrote this review after visiting a mysterious castle from the 11th century whilst on holiday in France so I was really in the mood to give this disc a spin.

With four vocalists and six different backing singers needless to say the vocals would take a big chunk out of the production. So is this in any way kind of a prog musical?

The nice thing is that several sounds and noises are added between the songs so as to link them together to make one big story. Whilst "Take It All Away" starts in a medieval, Arabian kind of way, the song sadly evolves into kind of a cheap bossa nova offspring which even goes on into "One Day." We have to wait until "I've Got You In My Blood" before we hear something interesting and even then it's soft funky, bluesy with a dash of wah-wah pedal to really place it in Isaac Hayes' field! As I witnessed on the previous tracks as well there are some nice guitarsolos but they are mixed way too much in the back. "This Moment" even introduces ? reggae, so I really start to doubt why I took on the task to review this album. "Shadows Wait" is a song which couldn't even make it on a Dean Martin cash-in album. "Find Our Love" is a Burt Bacharach exercise whilst "Won't Run" is third rate middle of the road. In fact none of the voices really fit the prog format at all. If one was to say this was a demo record then maybe I would accept this, because there would be room for improvement. I really don't want to hurt Paul Vincenti's feelings, as I know how much blood, sweat & tears it takes before an album is finished, but Paul should listen to his demo material first and then ask himself what he can do with it. I mean "Hot Pursuit" is not bad but he'd have to get rid of that boring drum machine first and then maybe send it to Prince for approval. Just listen to the voice on the final track "Something Strange" and ask yourself what this has to do with prog. Instead of recruiting that many different voices (maybe Paul is a singing instructor?), he'd better try and find that many musicians who could translate his musical ideas. The next thing would be to seriously sift through the voices to end up with maybe one male and one female voice.

All hope is not lost as you can read more about the story by means of their website. Maybe there's a competition how to become a member of the band ?

Vincenti is also a painter and has illustrated his story through a series of oil paintings... which you can view here: paulvincenti.com/ssindex.htm; you can see other artwork here: vincentifantasyart.com


Tracklisting:
Rhythms On The Wind / Take It All Away / One Day / Let Me Introduce You / I've Got You In My Blood / This Moment / Shadows Wait / Find Our Love / You're Gonna Know / Won't Run / Hot Pursuit / Something Strange

Musicians:
Paul Vincenti - master of ceremony (all instruments) and vocals
Craigger White - lead guitars, backing vocals
Al Kraiker - lead and backing vocals
Criss Thompson - lead and backing vocals
Chuck Holden - lead and backing vocals
Al Lucas - textural guitars
John Masters - piano (3)
Caroline Cox, Rochelle Noble, Paulette Dewitt, Sophie and Avalon - backing vocals

Discography:
Something Strange (2000)

Genre: Progressive Rock

Origin US

Added: September 17th 2000
Reviewer: John "Bobo" Bollenberg

Artist website: www.paulvicenti/ssindex.htm
Hits: 1678
Language: english

  

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