Ruminations - January 1, 1999
by Stephanie Sollow



Crisis? What Crisis?


December was a very strange and frustrating month in the Listening Booth. Our main computer, the mission-critical machine that produces this e-zine each quarter, decided to seize functioning. After a long, trecherous journey through operating system reinstalls, hard drive reformatting and replacement, and memory checks, we ended up replacing the motherboard. We're doing okay, but not great. The saving grace in all this is that we saved all this issue's reviews on a different drive, so, though late by a month, the issue is out.

So, with that out of the way...

There seems to be at least two trends in neo-progressive this past year: the concept album and tracks detailing with a crisis of faith.

The 1997-1998 year saw no less than four released - Arena's The Visitor, Shadow Gallery's Tyranny, Cast's Angels and Demons and IQ's Subterranea (reviewed next issue). Of course, in a way, all albums are concept albums - the tracks all go together in some way. The difference with the these four is that these (like many before) follow a narrative thread from start to finish.

In fact, Arena's release actually fits into both the trends. By extension and stretching it, so does Tyranny. Alright, I'll admit it. They all do.

I won't go into a track by track analysis of any of these albums, but I will say that the approach that each of these take towards that "crisis of faith" idea are along very different paths. The Visitor's approach is surrealistic, a journey through a person's inner world - life passing before one's eyes, I suppose. With Tyranny, it is a paranoid tale, hinting at Orwell's 1984 and reminding of Queenryche's Operation:Mindcrime. Cast takes the allegorical like approach with their concept - in some ways a follow-on from their previous release Beyond Reality.

I think the crisis of faith, so to speak, has to do with the fears and uncertainty of the coming end of the millennium. While some worry it will be the end of the world as we know it, not just in terms of the Y2K computer glitch, I think there are others who are afraid that it isn't. That when they wake up Saturday morning, January 1, 2001, the world hasn't changed as prophesied.

Of course, the world will change; it changes every day. But on a global or cataclysmic scale? I don't think so. For those who were hoping for it to mark the Second Coming, thinking that it might not, can bring forth crisis of faith. If that is wrong, what else is wrong? Is it all wrong? (Or has the date of the Second Coming moved again and I'm behind the times?)

This trend isn't really so new, I realize. Everyone who believes in God, or a god, or in gods, has a moment where they question their beliefs. Even those of us who don't believe that there are higher beings of any sort, have similar crisis - we may believe things should work one way, and when they don't, our faith in that system is thrown into question.

It certainly makes me interested to see what things will be explored in 1999. I suspect we'll see more concept albums, see our favorite artists taking chances with their sounds, textures, styles, and certainly, as the end of the millennium draws ever closer, we'll see that explored more.

Some additional thoughts for this issue are:

I have been reading a very interesting book by Ed Macan entitled Rock Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. Even though I'm only half way through it, I am finding it a very informative read and recommend it wholeheartedly. So far it has taken a very even handed and objective view of British Progressive Rock.

New with this issue is a section entitled Quick Takes. [Now absorbed -ed] I stood before my collection and picked out disks at random, intending to do a special issue (but that plan went awry). Things selected were mainly those I hadn't heard in a long while. Some I now remember why. Others, I'm hearing with new, more critical ears.

The Quick Takes section will be updated periodically, between and with the regular issues.

[This idea will continue, as I will post reviews of past releases along with reviews of new releases. Since I often want to know what someone or several someones thought about an artist's back catalogue, why not make that an easily found resource? -ed.]


This didn't have a title back in '99, but I gave it one now, with all deference to Supertramp.








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Published on: 1999-01-01 (2155 reads)

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