Country: USA
Genre: Psychedelic/Space Rock, Progressive Rock
Musicians:
Mark Lavallee,-drums
Fred Hunter,-keyboards, bass
Francisco Neto,-guitar, guitar synth
Jeff McFarland,-vocals, acoustic guitar
A couple of weeks ago keyboard player Fred Hunter send me two CDs. One was his recent 'solo' project Transience and the other one a 1997 album of his band Land's End. Land's End's history goes back a to the early nineties. After several changes in line-up and the release of a demo in 1992, the band got the line-up that was maintained until this day; Mark Lavallee (drums), Fred Hunter (keyboards & bass), Francisco Neto (guitars) & Jeff McFarland (vocals & acoustic guitars).
In September 1994 they released their first album Pacific Coast Highway. Several months later the band signed with the Cyclops label, with whom they released 3 more studio albums and one live album so far. Natural Selection was the band's most recent studio album.
The first time I played the Land's End album I was slightly put-off by the lack of originality when I heard the first real track. I switched to the Transience CD and put the other one on the stack of 'Pending Work'. The Transience review was a lot easier to do (you'll find it elsewhere in this column. After finishing the hardest work on the DPRPoll I went back to the Land's End album and after playing it several times (I found it rather hard to form an opinion about it) it really started to grow on me.
Strictly Speaking In Geographical Terms is just one minute of sound effects of frogs and a keyboard soundscape. It's one of those tunes that makes you turn up the volume of your stereo set just before the next track suddenly starts with a loud and bombastic beginning, startling you.
That second track is From The Ruins Of A Fallen Empire and is a long epic of almost 15 minutes. The start sounds like a mixture of Punch & Judy (keyboards), Bitter Suite and Assassin' (drums) and Eye in the Sky (bass). After this Marillion-esque start (Fugazi period) a very Tony Banks-like keyboard solo followss. The middle piece is more Floydian with a nice guitar solo by Francisco.
Many variations and new themes follow. After the melody of the opening section has returned the song goes into a closing section with some more solos.
It is a very nice track with a lot of variety, some great melodies and good singing.
From The Ruins Of A Fallen Empire merges seamlessly with the next track, Love Through The Winter And Blood In The Spring - bloody hell, who made up these weird titles ? As a matter of fact, the whole 74 minutes album is really one long track, with every song merging into the next one.
Love Through the Winter ... starts with some freaky guitar in the background and percussion before keyboard bass and guitar pick up a threatening repeated low key note. Vocals come in and sing a mysterious dirge that slowly gains in agressiveness.
The mid section of the song is formed by several rather psychadelic bits (reminiscent of early Floyd), including a Marillion-esque keyboard solo .....
.... and then after 11 minutes of bliss, the song goes into the wonderfully emotional ballad An Emptiness That Cannot Be Filled. Acoustic guitar and vocalist Jeff at his best, and a Floydian guitar solo in the end to top it off.
Next track, My Home, starts with a powerful prog rock section before it goes into a more laid-back Marillion-esque song. In the middle section guiitarist Neto goes berserk on the wah-wah pedal. Great stuff ! After an orgasmatic climax the song returns to the earlier low tempo rhythm after 6 minutes. After s slightly cheesy synth-sax solo the vocals continue and the song comes to a final climax one more time.
Natural Selection is an incredibly long track; 30 minutes ! Of course that doesn't immediately make it a good song, although it will fascinate most prog fans. The track starts with the same frog sounds as the opening track of the album. In the first part of the epic, Unravelling The Threads Of A Waning Moon, Spanish guitar and congas accompany a nice quiet laid-back ballad that last about 4 minutes. The second part of the track, Meridians Of Time, is a slightly more experimental bit, accompanied by the Spanish guitar from the previous section. So far so good.
After about 6 and a half minutes a rather horrible section called Practice starts. This part is a DAT recording with 2 microphones set up in a room of a spontaneous jam. The first problem is that its sung in German. If there's one thing worse than a German singer with a heavy German accent than its an American singer who wants to sing in German for no good reason whatsoever. Besides that, since it's a spontaneous jam, it really isn't a good piece of composing and therefore completely out of place. This torture lasts for about 6 minutes. What were they thinking ?!
The next segment, the two minutes long Theory, the weird fiddling of Practicechanges into a slow tempo section with vocals and a dark low bass line. Next is Hell, a 9 minutes long instrumental section which starts with a variation on the same bass line. After some Rothery-like echoing guitar effects it's one guitar and keyboard solo after the other, most of them variations on earlier themes in the song. At 21 and a half minutes the song returns to the melody of Unravelling ....
The final segment is called Awaiting Extinction and starts at 24 minutes. The tempo increases while more variations on earlier themes follow. The song ends with a veryFocus-like bit of guitar and a final verse with a bit of a Klaatu-feel.
Despite it's length the title track is probably the weakest song on the album.Practice definitely spoils the continuity of the epic and some of the instrumental segments don't really work quite the way they should. Some of it just feels too long and drawn out, especially the last two sections, which are just repetition after repetition of the same themes. If the song would have been limited to about 15 minutes it would probably have worked better.
While writing this review I still find it hard to describe the music. None of the band members are brilliant musicians and there are quite some bum notes and bits and pieces when not everybody is playing 100% in time. Especially Mark Lavallee is a rather questionable drummer (which only enhances the 'early Marillion' feel of some of the songs). Fred and Francisco are doing quite reasonable on keys and guitars and occassionally they really shine in a moment of excellence. Jeff is a very capable singer, although most of his singing is in the same style, never getting really agressive. His voice is very enjoyable though, although some of the multi-vocal overdubs are a bit clumsy, so you hear Jeff singing twice, but out of synch.
Nevertheless there is a real 'live' feel to the music and there's a certain chemistry between the band members that gives the music it's edge. You don't just listen to this album; you experience it. It's got a lot of influences from Pink Floyd, Marillion and Genesis. There's the occassional psychedelic bit reminding me of Pink Floyd in the late 60s, early seventies.
Most of the album evolved from jam sessions, and they managed to capture that feel in the songs, while not losing themselves in senseless repeated themes and mediocre musiscianship (not counting practice that is).
Recommended to fans of early Floyd or Fish-era Marillion. Early Genesis fans might give it a try as well.
1997 - Natural Selection
Tracks Listing
1. Strictly Speaking In Geographical Terms 1:03
2. From The Ruins Of A Fallen Empire 14:44
3. Love Through The Winter And Blood In The Spring 11:36
4. An Emptiness That Cannot Be Filled 6:03
5. My Home 10:30
6. Natural Selection 30:00
Total Time: 73:56
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