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Review:
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In the blue corner with white cross, the challenger,
from Glasgow Scotland, please welcome Grand Tour or as some
of you may care to remember, Comedy of Errors Mark II. The
Bio reads as three following : Abel Ganz stalwart and founding
member Hew Montgomery decides to leave ,due to musical reasons,
his mates before starting up on their 2014 self-titled latest,
and create a new candidate for Neo-prog laurels and incorporating
three prominent members of Comedy of Errors, whose recent
2013 album "Fanfare & Fantasy" was a critical elite choice.
Ha, the Scots, such lovely people, at least their chairs
are musical, as vocalist Joe Cairney, guitar slinger Mark
Spalding and fantastic drummer Bruce Levick hitched up with
Hew and spewed out one hell of a debut album that will leave
many bewildered, easily as good if not even better than
either Abel Ganz (though "Shooting the Albatross" was one
monster disc) or the previously mentioned "Fanfare and Fantasy"
recording. And that is saying quite a lot, so it certainly
behooves me to explain my enthusiasm, even though the very
first spin through left me indifferent, at best, proving
that you have to always be receptive in the first place
and adapt to what you have selected! Upon repeated listens,
the depth and creativity as well as the stellar playing
from all involved, really comes shining through. Monty's
arsenal of keyboards really leaps to the forefront, utilizing
mellotrons, synths, organ and piano in massive doses, leaning
on Spalding's slick guitar to light up the skies, though
he is no pyro technician, he plays with a lyrical flair
and a lots of resolve. Cairney is not the flashiest guy
holding a mike but he is utterly convincing in his delivery
and a pleasant tone. The big drummer is my man, showing
off some solid stylings and providing some serious propulsion.
And as befits recent neo prog masterpieces (IQ, Galahad,
Sylvan, Magenta, Flamborough Head, Final Conflict, Eyesberg,
Harvest, Silhouette, RPWL, State Urge and Steve Rothery,
among many others?), the suave melodies are captivating,
the emotions razor sharp with pristine production and sound
as well as beautiful booklet and artwork.***
To thrust this to the uppermost level, we also have
a real good story that is personally close to my heart,
focusing on one of Hollywood's finest movies ever, "On the
Beach", a doomsday 1959 flick that was the equal to other
classics of the era like "Failsafe", "Seven Days in May",
"Colossus, the Forbin Project" and the famous black comedy
one, "Dr Strangelove". The cast composed of the cool Gregory
Peck, the always weird Anthony Perkins, Fred Astaire and
the suitably frazzled Ava Gardner (spectacular performance
as a drunken milf) and dealt with charming subject of global
nuclear annihilation, except for Australia. There is this
one scene that is particularly haunting, as the US navy
sub commanded by Peck picks up a Morse code message of gibberish
from California and quoting Wikipedia "Near San Diego, the
ship's communications officer, in a radiation and oxygen
suit, is sent ashore to a power station. He discovers the
mysterious signal is the result of a tilted Coca- Cola bottle
having been suspended by its neck with an open window's
shade pull cord; the shade then fluttering from random ocean
breezes and the suspended bottle's weight tapping out random
signals on a "live" telegraph key. Using proper Morse code,
the officer sends a message describing the situation and
then returns to the sub". I have cherished this passage
ever since I saw this as a youngster, at a time when nuclear
war looked inevitable and ducking under a school table was
the suggested option for survival. Hew has decided in our
trying times, to remind this apathetic society that the
danger is even greater now than when only a few leaders
had access to the ICBM inventory, while as today, too many
nutcases may blow our planet sideways! This is one of those
occasional recordings that require the listener to shadow
the lyrics booklet and submerse themselves into the grim
topic matter.***
The sweeping choir enters the stage, with piano and
synths in tow , followed up by the glittering electric guitar
introducing "It's Come to This", as Joe spins his sad tale,
a hopeless realization that the end is upon us, fueled entirely
by humanity's worst fears and tendencies. We perhaps tend
to forget that the Cold War is not over, only the main actors
have changed (Putin, Kim Jong-un, Obama, Khameini), a terrible
newbie showing up for a cameo role (Isis) and buckets of
apathy, from a society that has seemingly lost its consciousness.
Rock music once used to be highly political (Country Joe
& the Fish, U2, R.E.M., Dylan), so it's certainly nice to
see a prog band dealing less with sci-fi fantasy and more
with current reality, even if it has doomsday-like tendencies.
Let us be reminded that Hiroshima and Nagasaki was before
most of us were even born, a tragedy that just might repeat
itself one day, if we are not careful or at the very least
aware.***
The core of the album is the 2 part "The Grand Tour"
suite , the first 8 minute + section setting the table ,
while the longer second part ends the disc with a 14 minute
explosion. The urgency and despair are vehiculated by the
dire lyrics, the screeching guitar work, the reverberating
bass and the tectonic drumming, while the synths yearn to
be considered as some kind of desperate alarm/siren to the
deaf and blind. The axe work is suitable twirling in intensity,
the pulse frantic and urgent, with Montgomery piloting his
Enola Gay keyboard arsenal towards the inevitable.***
"Time Runs Out" qualifies as a gloomy title par excellence
and the pace is appropriately evil with gargantuan waves
of choir mellotron, slippery organ work and a sense of foreboding,
'a place in my nightmares' as a grieving Cairney intones
, a glorious melody that will feel very familiar (a hint
of "Hold out your Hand" by Chris Squire)and a subsequent
development that is classic neo/symphonic as 'the rockets
fly, and the sun burns out in a mushroom cloud' , not exactly
sugary love songs about teenage pleasure, I assure you.***
This new world order promised us "The Horn of Plenty"
and instead gave us more despondency than ever before, a
'connected' global society that constantly maintains the
'maybe', communication tools that rely on poor quality text
messaging and even worse orthography, as no one answers
their phones anymore. This brave new world is far from heroic,
encouraging primitive idiocy in order to justify the newfangled
form of control the masses sheepishly endorse, reignite
the millenary conflict between religions and sects. This
realization is brought home by the intense lyrics and the
purposeful arrangements, a coalescence of brooding power
and melancholic despondence that is impossible to ignore.***
My favorite track is the instrumental "Little Boy and
Fat Man", the rather odious nicknames for the Hiroshima
and Nagasaki bombs respectively, as the booming bass leads
the orchestra in retelling the tragic days in 1945 that
ended the war. The argument that it saved many million more
casualties (experts agree that expected Allied losses in
invasion were in the 1.5 million range and the Japanese
were willing to die 'en masse' for their emperor) serves
notice that there is nothing humans can do better than hurt
each other willingly, individually or collectively. Mark
Spalding unleashes and unlatches a series of spellbinding
and explosive guitar solos that match the synthesized artillery
to perfection.***
The epic "On the Radio" is a plea for discovering any
leftover sounds of life (the coke bottle scene comes to
mind), scouring the airwaves in a desperate search for surviving
clusters of humanity. The mood is convincingly sardonic,
a mixture of symphonic holocaust and lyrical introspection
that again fits nicely into the package, the last remaining
link left in a radiated world of silence. The survivors
will be jealous of the incinerated dead, to quote Nikita
Khrushchev. The visuals can be quite arresting, as the listener
is sitting on a desolate beach, the once blue sky fiery
red, no communication with no one, wondering why, waiting
for the end, in some kind of prostrate finality.***
The title track is another elongated affair, maintaining
the subject matter on trajectory, traced by satellite beacons
and rows of computerized target algorithms, 'desperate souls
standing next to me', Hew flirting with his armada of analog
synthesizers urging a sense of impending hopelessness, various
contrasts as they switch from one screen to another in the
command center buried deep in some mountain range (upon
reflection, a music studio can resemble a missile launch
control center, all that blinking equipment serving the
operator). Cairney's voice now slips into a finalization
of what is to happen in the End as he closes his eyes and
sings : 'the party is almost over on the beach' and ' no
one left alive on the beach' repeated ad infinitum.***
"The Grand Tour" part 2 puts the final touches (The
final countdown) on the perfect isolation that results from
human stupidity, 'an industry of madness' that recalls Eisenhower's
chilling farewell speech, an incredibly intrepid and courageous
act coming from a 5 star general, unveiling the term 'industrial-military
complex' and placing it at the forefront of our dangers
( I urge everyone to look it up on youtube!). The music
fits the atmosphere, Spalding unwrapping a slide guitar
barrage that is completely awe-inspiring, as all involved
provide the sonic background for the implicit message, a
trait that is still a rarefied commodity in our material
world.***
I generally refrain from giving the highest marks for
a debut album but there should always be exceptions, as
this slow burning, effervescent, thought provoking and existential
recording needs to be properly addressed and disseminated
to all the blind sheep out there, before we accidently or
willingly blow ourselves to kingdom come. Certainly music
food for thought and one of 2015's finest releases so far.
Hey, you get music, history, current affairs and art, all
wrapped in one!***
5 nuclear footballs***
(Thomas
Szirmay)
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