The Watch are great, and the recent Stewart Bell (from CC) solo albums feature Simone Rossetti, the singer of The Watch, so you kind of get both in that sense.Originally Posted by stevedian
The Watch are great, and the recent Stewart Bell (from CC) solo albums feature Simone Rossetti, the singer of The Watch, so you kind of get both in that sense.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
re someone mentioned lack of drums on Stones ... and guitars too... all "guitar" leads were played on keys...
Can't get past the near-dead ringer Gabriel imitation and although there are some nice arrangements like the vocalist, not sure this band found it's own voice, based on what I've heard which doesn't inspire me to dig deeper. Too bad, they clearly have some craftsmanship and put some effort into it.
This was before bands hired singers to sound like their own previous vocalists.
Well, except on the first track, which has an actual lead guitarist. Plus, I thought Bell played actual guitar? In any case, there really isn't much lead guitar to speak of on that album.
The Crispin Glover Syndrome, you mean?
Buddhabreath discreetely said:
The interesting part is that these sort of bands actually appear to regard it as forté to sport an asset of "imitation"; it's as if the general rule works along the line of the following logic: 'the closer we get to reproducing the exact surface identity of iur ideals, the better we naturally get'. And Citizen K weren't any "worse" at this than about 100 other such names I've heard through the years.Can't get past the near-dead ringer Gabriel imitation
And it's NOT only "neo-prog" enterprises who involve in this practice.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Junk and Donuts indeed has a great Can Utility and the Coastliners vibe.
This one just never really clicked for me, for some reason. Maybe too vocal heavy. And too heavy vocals.
I like a lot of music that some people complain about being too derivative of Genesis, and I really don't mind a group being influenced by or occupying a similar conceptual space as the Charterhouse boys (in fact, that's often a good thing in my book), but this sort of blatant pastiche generally does very little for me.
I have the same issue with later albums, too many words, I get so tired of his voice by the end of each listen. This one and Serpents... aren't as bad and present a nice Genesis/ Marillion sound that I really enjoy overall.
Back in the mid to late 00's when I was a collecting machine "Somewhere But Yesterday" was impossible to find. I found "Serpents In Camouflage" and a later one from this American vendor I found on line, had to call him up at his house and wondered if it was all legit but also got a Landberk cd there in the process which was also out of print so I was happy it all worked out. And yes the CC was on Si Music and distributed by Samsung Electronics Co. All the liner notes are in Korean but some english words in there are Marillion, Phil Collins and British Neo Pogressive Rock.
"The wind is slowly tearing her apart"
Sad Rain
Anekdoten
I think this is far the best of the three 1990s Citizen Cain albums (which are all I have). It is painfully derivative of Peter Gabriel-era Genesis and there are occasionally more words per measure than it is safe or even sane to have, but there is still room for some good melodies, especially on the title track.
One thing where they and many of the other Genesis imitators fall so desperately short of their paragone is variety. What enchants me about albums like A Trick of the Tale or The Lamb Lies Down on Broadawy is the richness of sounds, moods, details, ideas. Compared to that, the likes of Citizen Cain seem to sweat to recreate just one, rather generic Genesis sound and approach (often something on the lines of The Battle of Epping Forest / Cinema Show) and end up sounding rather monochromatic. It's like a decent reproduction of an oilpainting, only drawn with only neon markers. That, I think, marks them more as a post-Marillion era act.
A pretty good description, even though I enjoy some of this stuff.
I agree that CC have kind of a monochromatic sound. But my problem with them is kind of the opposite problem I have with the usual neo-prog bands. Usually, neo-prog bands have a very simplistic approach to songwriting, largely spewing forth facile AOR anthems sweetened with synth arpeggios and guitar solos. CC on the other hand go the other direction. Their music seems to be complex for its own sake. I don’t mind “difficult” music, but your pieces have to have some kind of form. It’s like they practiced their instrumental chops like crazy, but never bothered to learn the basics of songwriting, just throwing as many time-signature and key changes without any kind of logic. As a result, their music goes in one ear and out the other without me retaining any of it. They’re hardly the only 90s prog act to suffer this problem (Kalaban comes to mind), but they have to be the only so-called “Genesis clone” to do so.
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
... still cant here any genesis similarities... totally different in musical/lyrical/structural context. the overall vibe/mood is opposite either. dark CC vs bright G. Let alone the technicality/complexity aspect...
I forgot about Kalaban! Got both of their albums years ago, but can scarcely remember a note from either of them. I remember thinking that some of it was pleasant enough...
There's some kinds of music that don't have melodies that are quick to stand out in your mind, but are still rewarding to listen to given time. For example, The Underground Railroad's second album comes to mind. Very complex stuff going on, nothing really "catchy", but there's some fascinating -- even emotionally resonant -- music on it.
The main prob with them - except for the fact that they had a singer whose superlatively wimpy voice still haunts my sexual identity with ambiguity in the night - was that they didn't always seem technically capable of playing their own music. Which wasn't really THAT overtly challenging to begin with, compared to what some others are doing (check Thinking Plague for reference). Kalaban DID display some intriguing melodic ideas, though - especially on Resistance is Useless.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Within the contraints of a Miramax universe they'd may come across as 'dark', I suppose.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Oh yes, I've had Don't Panic for the best part of two decades now. I listen to it every few years, and never remember much about it afterwards. At least it's always fresh and almost new every time I return to it. In fact, if I had about a hundred more such albums, I'd never need to buy another album again!
I own it,but it has been so long since I listened to it I can't recall any of the music.
I've just given the title epic a spin. And wow! What an amazing song. Musically, it's kinda Genesis inspired but tbh it really has a personality of its own. I especially like Cyrus' dark theatrical vocals. They really fit that symphonic neo prog tinged style. The lyrics are definitely worth paying attention to for I think they're very good. The "All Sin's Men" part gives me chills.
Here is my original un-edited review I wrote for Progression back when Somewhere But Yesterday was released. The version published in Progression was apparently edited by John for brevity and was a main reason why I stopped submitting reviews shortly after this one. Looking back at it these many years later I still stand by what I wrote - this was a fantastic album, but one that really needs an investment from the listener to truly appreciate. Funny to see the Jadis reference - I still feel Across the Waters was a snooze-fest compared to their debut (actually, none of their subsequent releases ever came close to that first one for me). --Peter
CITIZEN CAIN "SOMEWHERE, BUT YESTERDAY" (S.I. MUSIC) 60MIN.
It has taken fifteen years, but the missing link between Genesis and Marillion (classic prog and neo-prog) has finally been recorded. "Somewhere But Yesterday", the new Citizen Cain album, draws its influences equally from Gabriel-era Genesis and early Marillion. The resulting synthesis yields an easy contender for prog-album of the year.
The first album from Citizen Cain, "Serpents in Camouflage", was released in 1992. Touted as the Scottish answer to Genesis and Marillion, I was quite disappointed when I finally had a chance to listen to it. Cyrus Scott's vocals were pedestrian at best, the lyrics lacked focus, and the music was overblown neo-progressive with almost no variation in the dynamic range. Since the first listening, I have warmed up to this album a little more and would now describe it as a very good (though still underdeveloped) IQ-clone.
"Somewhere But Yesterday" retains only Cyrus Scott and Stuart Bell (keyboards) from the original lineup. This is a much more mature album musically and lyrically. The guitar-keyboard interaction is the closest yet I've heard to capturing the classic Hackett-Banks style of early-Genesis. Although influences range all over the place, the one song that keeps running through my mind when I listen to this album is Genesis' "Can-Utility and the Coastliners" (from 'Foxtrot'). The songs bounce effortlessly back and forth from gentle accoustic shades to bombastic neo-prog fireworks. Cyrus' vocals are much more developed and are beginning to carve out their own identity, though at times he can sound amazingly like early Gabriel. His lyrics are also phenomenal. His writing style is definitely influenced by Gabriel's early work with Genesis. The liner notes say the album is about "aspects of the self", but I'm still trying to decipher the strange metaphors and Biblical references.
The album opens with "Johnny Had Another Face", a song with easily distinguishible early-Marillion influences. But the song also hints at Genesis' "The Battle of Epping Forest", "The Cinema Show", "The Colony of Slippermen", and even Peter Gabriel's "Moribund the Burgermeister". But despite these reference points, the music still comes across fresh and original.
The title track clocks in at twenty-six minutes, thus begging for comparison to the standard of progressive epics, "Supper's Ready". Of all the groups I have heard, these guys come closest to capturing that elusive spirit of epic progressive rock. The song sometimes parallels the structure of "Supper's Ready", but the music is strong and the lyrics are original enough that you never feel that these guys are plagarizing. Hats off to Stuart Bell for getting the most authentic-sounding flute sounds out of a keyboard that I've ever encountered. The musical interplay evokes the best of the Banks/Collins/Hackett collaborations, but the final sound is definitely grounded in the school of neo-progressive bands like Marillion or IQ.
I remember reading in several different sources how the new Jadis album was to be the best progressive release of the year. Although I was never impressed with 'Across the Waters', that album now seems pedestrian in light of "Somewhere But Yesterday". With this release, Citizen Cain shows that there is still unexplored territory in the neo-progressive universe. While I still feel that Cyrus needs to work on his voice, and the band need to develop their own sound a little more, they still get my vote for best progressive rock album of the year.
I do like that song quite a bit. The whole album is rather good, IMO, even if it's not exactly the most original in style. I listened to this one a ton a few years ago, along with Serpents in Camouflage which is also pretty enjoyable.
"what's better, peanut butter or g-sharp minor?"
- Sturgeon's Lawyer, 2021
Good review, Peter! Interesting to have the album (which I also like) paired against the Jadis album. I like the Jadis album, but "pedestrian" is not inaccurate.
Just goes to show what the 'buzz' band was at the time. Jadis had a ton of hype back then. --Peter
Like "Somewhere But Yesterday" a lot! Looking forward to ordering more of their catalog.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks