Good thing come to those who wait, so they say. Well, tonight that advertising slogan for Guinness has let me down. Progressive rockers Mothership have landed in Denver with an album of less than stellar quality. Between Mothership and Star Trek -when you think about it - outer space really hasn't given us much.
The album follows the themes of space and time. Nothing new in that though it must be difficult to try and be an inventive prog rock band. If you stray too far from prog rock standards, you offend the prog rock ethics and alienate the hardcore. If, like Mothership, your prog rock album is clichéd, the album is likely to be poorly received. Therein lies the problem. Mothership have made a perfectly standard progressive rock album. On a positive note, Adam Shaffner's vocals have a wonderful tendency to fade in and out -almost completely at times - managing to make the vocals appear even more uninvolving than the music.
With song titles like "Cybernetic Companion" and "White Nebula", it's not hard to decipher that the band have put standard science fiction fare to music. Maybe that is overstating things, but it does at times feel like you're listening to something by L. Ron Hubbard put to music.
This album is best left as background music for the stoned Queensryche fans sitting in their room, discussing the profound effect that The Lord of the Rings trilogy has had on their lives. Even then, they'll probably opt for Queensryche. Available from CD Baby