| The
Review |
This on-line only limited edition
disc is well worth having, as KINO were one of the best surprises
of early 2005. Consisting of Arena's John Mitchell, Marillion's
Pete Trewavas, former Porcupine Tree drummer Chris Maitland
and John Beck from It Bites, the 'Neo-prog supergroup' had
managed to offer up a perfect blend of accessable and melodic
rock with incredible scope and maturity. This disc consists
of demos of further new songs and live versions of material
from their one album, PICTURE. As far as sound quality goes,
the entire disc is not 'bootleggy' by any means, and the 'demos'
are rather cohesive and pretty far along in developement.
As one of them is a 14-minute epic, I'm hoping this material
surfaces somewhere where it can enjoy greater exposer. This
certainly whet my appetite for good Neo music, and a welcome
addition to the collection.
The trax:
PEOPLE, PRESENT TENSE, ROOM FOR
TWO, PICTURE:These tracks from PICTURE are live versions and
pretty much true to their originals. As you can hear:
ROOM FOR TWO is pretty good in
a live enviroment.
PICTURE, is slightly different
however. Here, a short and reflective track with just piano
voice and effects is even further stripped down to just simple
piano and the naked voice, making this track even more haunting.
THROW IT AWAY:
Drum loops introduce this demo
with a mid-tempo modern rock feel, possibly left off of the
album due to an overabundance of similar material. There's
a hint of Beatles with the mellotron 'flute' sounds and a
George Harrison guitar bit in the middle. It's said that John
Mitchell originally wanted KINO to be a 5-piece band and wanted
Ray Wilson as lead vocalist, but Ray was already busy and
enjoying success with his own solo carrer, and thus declined.
I can almost hear where Ray would fit on this track, almost
hear his voice. This track has some acoustic guitar as well,
unlike the PICTURE album where acoustic doesn't crop up too
often.
ALL YOU SEE: demo of the track
from PICTURE features, I believe, some vocals from Pete Trewavas
on the verses.
WON'T FALL DOWN: another Beatlesy
track with some tambourine and mock 'string' section bopping
away. Maybe some Ray Wilson-era Genesis as well. I could be
mistaken, but I think Pete sings some on here too. I'm hoping
for a Trewavas solo album one day.
SAY YOU WILL: well, most bands don't
keep 15-minute epic tracks lying around to be used as filler
for internet-only demo CD's. I'm hoping this one surfaces
on a future KINO record. Looking at the track's length, I
thought maybe this was some jam or work in progress or something,
but no- it's an actual long song, developed and cohesive.
It goes through many moods, changes and influences. I would
say there's a kinda YES sound to some of it. The Harmonies,
texture and Wakemanesque organ solos. But also kinda Billy
Sherwood too. That is, if Sherwood was a member of the classic
70's YES in some alternate reality, this is what it may have
sounded like. I like the vocal harmony effect during the 'country-ish'
section, almost like it was recorded in some very large dome.
After a bit of Yessiness, it goes back into the traditional
neo sound and fades. A stellar track, on a online-only cardboard
sleave demo disc?!? Slap this puppy AS IS onto the next KINO
record.
PARADE: one great loss to rock music
was the death of Kevin Gilbert(Toy Matinee, etc.), who never
really got the recognition he deserved and certainly could
have went on to better things. This short Gilbert track was
recorded for a tribute album which was never released. He
didn't even get a tribute album. At least you can hear it
here. Reminds me a little of something from Rob Fetters(of
The BEARS with Adrian Belew). After a couple minutes of silence,
one of those 'hidden' track things emerges- an anthemic instrumental
bit with some nice shimmering keys and soulful guitar solos.
This could have been developed for some other song's middle
section perhaps, nice expressive playing.
Roll out the next KINO record!
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