Cosmic Singularity – First Steps (Promethean Muses Records)
A little bit Yes, a little bit no. I have to say I am impressed by the effort the band has gone into emulating the 70’s progressive acts. Indeed, they can claim to have succeeded - to some extent. Apparently the members come from well-established modern American progressive bands, though their names mean nothing to me, as I haven’t followed prog for years. That said, I do still listen to some original 70’s progressive music, and having ‘been there’ when it was actually taking off the first time around, I do know a bit about it. Some of it has matured quite nicely, thank you very much, whilst a good deal might best be described as rancid (there was a lot made back then that was rancid when it was fresh off the vinyl pressing, believe you me!).

There’s enough here on First Steps that appears to be ‘right’, though. They could almost pass this off as original early 70’s progressive, and not the rotten sort either. The organ and keyboard work is particularly good (make that superb), as is the lead guitar. However, the vocals aren’t quite right. They just don’t match the prog rock template. The voice and delivery of Steve McAndrew is far more suited to the later AOR bands, such as Journey and Bon Jovi. This is partly due to the lyrics lending themselves to that type of music, and partly due to McAndrew’s style, which doesn’t quite deliver the edge that frontmen like Peter Gabriel, Peter Hamill and Jon Anderson were so adept. There’s even a bit of Queen territory covered on “Indigo Sonata”, and Freddy and Queen were a lot of things, but pure prog they weren’t.

Still, the format is familiar, as five of the eleven tracks are Parts I to V of “Looking Upwards, Looking Downwards Suite”, a concept that could give the King Crimson of old, or Pink Floyd a run for their money. Although not in purely musical terms, as they don’t sound like either band for more than the odd few seconds, you understand, but in the layout of the original idea for this suite, and the attempt to link each section, and intertwine it musically and lyrically, as both Floyd and King Crimson did.

An interesting effort, to say the least, and I hope that they are able to get together at some later stage to produce more – especially if during the interim they have listened to Van der Graf Generator (for the vocals), Steamhammer (for the sustained and melodic interplay), and Rare Bird, for everything else. A bit of Trapeze could help next time too, and what about Help Yourself, or…
www.myspace.com/mycosmicsingularity

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