1. Nothing Box - 10:532. One Heart - 6:20
3. Salvation Station - 5:08
4. Dear Daddy - 10:30
5. To Someone - 18:15
6. She, A Lonely Tower - 10:57
Glass Hammer's If was so outstanding, I swooped down on this latest release with eager anticipation. However, the copycat artwork should have been a red flag - maybe my expectations were too high, maybe they released another album too soon, maybe they let a certain new band member have too much of a creative outlet... The bottom line is, despite the presence of some amazing songs, most of the material on this album fails to coalesce into something special.
It starts out promisingly enough. "Nothing Box" delivers a thoughtful lyric on the isolation we create for ourselves through entertainment technology, and it marries the philosophy to some knotty, complex, stirring music: beautiful harmonies, jagged guitar lines, aggressive bass, and good compositional shape. The following "One Heart" continues the excellence, a song about the death of a loved one that highlights hope and rebirth. But then things go downhill.
"Salvation Station" is some sort of slip-shod anti-televangelist song, yet it mixes its message with general anti-TV sentiment, all over an embarrassing bluesy happy-time shuffle. Thankfully, the middle instrumental section has a little fire to it, otherwise it would be a complete throwaway. Then we hit "Dear Daddy." The lyrics are riddled with cliche: Daddy doesn't approve of me because I'm a musician, Daddy is distant and rough, Daddy didn't tell me he loved me, Daddy was too worried about "the rat race" to notice me. I hate to disparage what was probably a very personal song, but its expression is very impersonal. Not to mention the lyrics being sung from the perspective of one person, yet the singer is overdubbed all over himself with lyric lines bouncing off each other in a multiple-personality-disorder mess. Then we get more cheesy acoustic guitar shuffle and fluff. Where is the rest of the band? Well, they finally show up, and the song starts to pick up some musical steam, but then it throws us not one, not two, but three fake endings, each time going back into cheesy solo acoustic guitar mode. Seriously, where was quality control here?
I hoped the following "To Someone" would redeem the missteps of its predecessor, but it just keeps on skipping merrily down the same path: goofy acoustic guitar shuffle, sloppy lyrics about school bullies and "the system", no memorable vocals or melodies, compositional seams showing... None of the pieces really fit together, even if some of those pieces are pretty decent. It's one of the most disappointing prog rock "epics" I've ever experienced. And what's the big message at the end? "Mystery of life / Finally I found / 'Tis all for Love / It's Love alone the world's seeking". Nice job, genius! Figure that one out yourself, did you? That is a totally original thought! I don't think it's ever been expressed before, certainly not in a rock context! (Also, is that shout-out to Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein intentional? If so, then maybe I've completely misjudged the song... I don't think it is, though.)
It's enough to sour the taste of the concluding "She, A Lonely Tower", which is actually a very good song, similar to "Nothing Box" in creative complexity and adventurous melodicism. The three good songs here would make a mind-blowing EP. However, the dead weight drags the album down.
Arbitrary rating: 2.5 out of 5 bluesy happy-time shuffles
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