Record Reviews

CHRIS ~ CITY OF LIGHT PROGRESS 050 (Barcode: 7320470160428) ~ NETHERLANDS ~ Progressive Rock Recorded: 2012 Released: 2012 This is the third album by the Dutch Prog multi-instrumentalist / songwriter Christiaan BruinFind albums by this artist a.k.a. ChrisFind albums by this artist, who uses contemporary recording technology to perform as a one-man-band, playing all the instruments and delivering the vocals all by himself. Guitarist Bas ImmerzelFind albums by this artist adds guitar solos on a couple of tracks. The album offers six lengthy tracks, all composed by Chris. Such one-man projects are not unusual on the Prog scene and have been done for many years with various degree of success. It all depends of course on what the musician in question has to offer musically, aesthetically and intellectually. Contemporary electronic instruments, computer software and recording tools enable such one-man projects to be created with relative effortlessness, which of course is a double-edged sword as far as the results are concerned. In today´s reality so much music is being produced and then made available to listeners via the Internet, that it becomes increasingly more difficult to separate the jewels from the heaps of trivial rubbish. The album offers the listeners some catchy melodic phrases but the music somehow never really takes off, staying mostly monotonous and subdued. The six tracks all sound dangerously uniform, turning the entire album into one continuous flow of "more of the same". The drums, which are up-front almost at all times (perhaps due to the fact that Chris is a drummer in another band), dominate the music, and unfortunately sound like computer generated patterns being simply repeated ad nauseam. The vocals are mostly synthesized and full of exaggerated theatrics a la GenesisFind albums by this artist, which was quite enough when it happened originally. The overall sonic quality of the album also has major flaws, with the music sounding muffled and mushy, perhaps purposely so, but definitely unnerving. All in all this album is a classic example of contemporary Neo-Prog, which has very little to offer, mostly recycling the same musical resources that have been already thinned out to death. It also doesn´t offer any performing buzz whatsoever. Probably some diehard Neo-Prog fans will completely disagree with me and love this album to bits. De gustibus non est disputandum?

Updated: 21/09/2021Posted:

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