This is not a CD for the faint of Heart. I think that is a fair statement to start off with. It will challenge you intellectually, emotionally and technically. It is as if you become part of this onslaught. The story itself is pretty straight forward and self explanatory. The way they organize the story musically is highly complex. The first time you listen to the CD, you may just hear a ton of different sounds thrown together to sound cool and ominous. When you really try to unravel this multi layered behemoth, you quickly learn that this is a recording that will take multiple experiences to fully decipher as you continue to be blown away by this journey. Like a great horror movie, you start off in your peaceable kingdom and walk into a nightmare that has not been dreamt yet.
It starts of strangely confusing, with peaceful birds sounds and then over come with some dark forebodings from the distant and then stop for an awkward pause before you enter some beautiful guitar playing by Grant Mackenzie. So far, so good. The next wave sends you into unknown realms that grow darker as your qualms are slowly being crushed under the weight of apprehension.
The entire middle section of this journey is based on terror, pain, torture and endurance. Your survival skills have to kick in to proceed through a long process of drained adrenaline. Delusion becomes the only hope to see this through. Instinct from the wild animal are the only waves that you get to ride, as the horror mounts new attacks. You don’t even realize that your perception has been grounded to dust and those exploding pixels into a black hole is where your new awareness exists. Now that your mind has truly been blown, there is still more to the journey, the final section is there to let you reflect. It is a long multiplex of new emotions and experiences you must unravel. It may be one of the most intense attempts at redemption and trying to make sense of both black and white and coming to grips with your otherworldliness.
Jupiter Hollow is not a band that shrinks from challenges. Their musical techniques are plentiful and their experimentations are still young and impetuous. Their level of multi-instrumentation is a rare commodity, especially when they can organize all those notes to communicate with an audience that must have their own level of intellection.
I would hate to leave out the fact that Kenny Perry’s vocals on this are some of the most intently expressed I have heard in a very long time. The levels of different vocal techniques are completely stretched to the limit. He has beautiful moments of clarity, an extremely high and piercing range and he forces his vocals like an iron fist to hit the low guttural range as well. Yes they are techniques but emotionally they make perfect sense to help tie this odyssey together.
The final section of this Sci-Fi sojourn is to concede to the impossible and search out a form of redemption in an alien space that may not even understand atonement. It is the moment of personal divinity. With that, I leave you to experience this for yourself.
This is a very simple observation on my part. For all you Metal heads, Prog heads, and Jazz heads, if you want to impart you money for just one recording this year, “Bereavement”, would be that trophy for you to display as you blow out your speakers and piss off your neighbours. In others words, PLAY IT LOUD!
As a last funny thought, when punk rock came around in the late 70’s, it seemed they existed to piss of the immaculate musicians of that era, Example, Yes, King Crimson, ELP and so on. It was their 3 chords vs the multitude of notes. The same thing is kind of happening in reverse. These talented musicians would like some recognition for their musical prowess against the 3 chord wonders of today, example, Justin Beiber.
Just an observation…
Here are some images of Jupiter Hollow:
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