97.
Album title: Storm Warning
Artist: Andrew Roussak
Nationality: Russian
Sub-genre: Symphonic Prog
These next three albums, be warned, did not impress me on first listen. I say first listen, because at the time that was all I gave them. Hey, I had a list of 100 to do and the ones I did like were getting like 3-5 listens, and I'm no spring chicken, so I hadn't time to waste on albums that didn't click with me pretty quickly. Besides, who would care? It's not like I was, you know, reviewing them or something.
Well, now I am.
So it's time to revisit them and see if they were as bad, or as poor as I thought first time out. It's also only fair (to who? Me? Oh no: nobody thinks about the poor reviewer, do they?) that I make sure I give every album on the list a listen and a review, though I can tell you now, some of these made what little hair I have left stand on end, and I may still fail to make it all the way through some of them. If that's the case I'll note it, but I'll do my best to try to persevere. For my public. What do you mean? Lots of people are reading. Well, some people. Well, one person. Maybe.
Anyway, let's get the obvious joke out of the way before we begin, shall we? Yes, his name is Roussak and he's Russian so I'm sure he has never before heard anyone call him Russkie. Do you feel better now? Can we proceed? I'm so glad.
Reading up on him, Andrew Roussak should be someone I want to hear. He's a classically-trained musician who has an abiding love of progressive rock and plays in a few bands, composes film scores and a whole lot more besides. He's won awards. Really. Well, it says here anyway. But I just remember when I played this originally, if I recall correctly, it wasn't that I hated it; I think I was just bored by it. Maybe I didn't give it a chance. Well, now I will. We'll see how it goes this time.
This is Roussak's second solo album, but like Mr. Soord in the last post we have a difference of opinion here. See, his first was released in 2008, entitled
No Trespassing. Cool. But then he recorded
Blue Intermezzo in 2010, but that's a classical piano album, with things like tangos and nocturnes and, yeah, intermezzos all over the place, and nothing other than him and a grand piano. Nothing wrong with that: I love classical as much as the next guy. But it certainly isn't prog. So can we consider
Storm Warning his second solo album, if we're talking only prog? Or is it even prog, because as we found with the Pineapple Chief, well, even his second (or third, depending how you view it) solo album isn't actually prog, as such.
Such topics could be debated till the end of time, but we don't have that long so let's leave it to our robot descendants to squabble over what constitutes a Roussak solo album and just say this is not his debut, and leave it at that. There are vocals on this, and guitars, and what looks like some sort of suite at the end, so we'll tentatively label it prog, and after all, it is in the list. Mind you, so was Bruce, but enough of that. I think I remember being bored by track two or three, so let's see if I feel the same way now.
A lot of sound effects and technical foolery taking us into the first track, “Enter Code”, and for a moment it's too avant-garde/experimental for me, then Roussak comes in on the piano and it takes better shape. Bass cuts in and we're getting a real Alan Parsons vibe now, with warbly keyboard straight out of the Rick Wakeman playbook, growling then introspective guitars. I'm reliably informed Roussak plays all the instruments here – bar guitars on one or two songs. “Bringing Peace and Progress” is not, as you might expect, a ballad, but another rocker, driven on guitar and with the sound effects mostly of jets flying low overhead. It's a long track – though not the longest – at just over eight minutes, and it looks to be, like the opener, instrumental, so let's hope there's enough here to keep the interest, as instrumental can be, as I mentioned before, tedious and repetitive. It's certainly got great energy, that's for sure, some rippling piano passages before the guitar takes control again then it gets quite funky in the middle, but I'm still reserving judgement. I'm not by any means won over yet, and I can definitely see why I stopped listening the first time. “Left Alone Outside” does seem to be a slower track, riding on acoustic guitar and almost using elements of the old standard “Classical Gas” in parts of the melody, but then it kicks up and gets heavier and reminds me of my old friend Plankton, who can make a guitar do just about anything he wants it to.
This is the first track to feature vocals, and they come courtesy of one Max Kottler as the song slows back down. So is it a ballad or is it not? At this stage I can't say; the music seems to want to rock out but the vocal passages stick to slower lines. Confusing. This is also one of the three tracks on which Roussak hands guitar duties to others (or at least, the solos) and in this case it's Oli Weislogel who does the honours, and a very fine job he does of it too, even if it's pretty severely truncated. Kind of makes you wonder why he bothered. With a name like “Regata Storica” you probably know what to expect, and it's another instrumental, very much more in the classical mode than the progressive rock one, to my mind. Well, the opening part is, but then it goes back forty years to the heyday of prog rock with a wibbly wobbly keyboard extravaganza. Hmm. I feel Roussak's devotion to, almost adoration of Emerson and Wakeman is leading him here to also indulge in their seventies excesses, and for me it's pretty much a case more of showing off in a Yes/Dream Theater style than music I can actually enjoy.
At least there's some more singing on “Chasing Shadows”, this time from Nadia Ayche, who has a nice almost operatic voice and was, I believe, one of Roussak's vocal coaches. Um. I don't think he sings, does he? Why does he need a... well, maybe she's just a vocal coach he knows? Anyway it's a nice ballad, pretty stripped down with really only piano and voice, then the title track brings back in the sound effects (hell, it's called “Storm Warning” so I guess he couldn't resist throwing in a siren) and there's a real sense of panic and frenetic activity about the keyboard here, but I'm finding it to be basically more of the same, and there's not, so far, any track here I will remember when this is over. Some nice jazzy piano, yes, but it's all towards the same end and I don't get any real sense of cohesion from the album.
I would definitely expect a song titled “Can She Excuse My Wrongs” to be a ballad, but it begins with a very medieval sounding harpsichord thing, which I don't interpret as a good sign. Now it's kicking into another organ/Moog fest but yawn I'm so bored now. At least there's only one track left to go, even if it is ten minutes long. Oh look! There are some vocals at the end of “Can She Excuse ah I'm too bored to even write the whole title out”. It actually makes the song worse, if that's possible. Just completely pointless. Choral vocal harmonies right in the last minute? Why?
Well now we're onto the closer, which is that suite of which I spoke at the beginning. It all goes under the heading of “Malta Sketches” and opens with “Hola Beach Boogie” which is, well, a boogie on electric guitar - at least that's different, and lively. Then “1565” slows it all down on piano and synth, with Oli coming back in for a solo in part three, “Sunset in Valetta”, which also features a vocalist, this time Selina Waidmann, another vocal coach. Right. Like Oli on the other track, not sure why she bothered, as all she seems to do is croon some kind of
vocalise. Oh well, at least it's over now.
Songs / Tracks Listing
1. Enter Code (4:08)
2. Bringing Peace And Progress (8:02)
3. Left Alone Outside (7:30)
4. Regata Storica (6:02)
5. Chasing Shadows (4:37)
6. Storm Warning (5:41)
7. Can She Excuse My Wrongs (5:22)
8. Malta Sketches (10:15) :
- a. Hola Beach Boogie
- b. 1565
- c. Sunset in Valetta
Total time 51:37
See, usually I know, pretty much, whether an album is going to be worth my time or not. People talk about “growers”, but I've never really believed in that concept. If you're going to get into an album I personally hold the opinion that you'll hear
something – you may not love it but you'll hear something that will encourage you to come back to it. A “grower”, to my understanding, is an album you don't like at first but “grow” to like, or even love. remember Frownland telling me after I had rejected his favourite Captain Beefheart album, that it took about forty listens to get into it. Who the hell has that sort of time, and who would want to waste such effort getting into something you clearly don't like?
So it was with Mr. Roussak. I knew from about track two that it wasn't necessarily terrible, but it was not for me. And so it has proved. It's a decent album, but not one I'd recommend because I don't see anything much in it to recommend. For me, it sits right alongside “poor” keyboard albums such as Derek Shernihan's
Oceania or
All Out by Don Airey. Just because they're good keysmen does not mean they make good solo records. I find a lot of keyboard-only albums can be very boring. I haven't listened to much of Wakeman's stuff, but I feel it could be a case of Sleepman in my case. I love keyboards, but I like them as support instruments, not up front
a la Mister Ego himself, Keith of the Emersons.
So by all means listen to this if it's your thing. It's not a bad album, but for me it's just too staid and boring in terms of content, and it's been hard to write even this review without falling asleep at the keyboard. Ah, that's computer, not synthesiser.
Original decision vindicated.
Rating: 5/10