Greg Segal - "Adventures of Forever and Nowhere"
(Phantom Airship Records 2004, PAle 16)
Greg Segal - "Adventures of Forever and Nowhere"
(Phantom Airship Records 2004, PAle 16)
From Aural Innovations #31 (June 2005)
Greg Segal's plan to release CD's on a monthly basis last year was pretty ambitious so it's no surprise things didn't quite work out that way. But he has nonetheless put out a steady stream of albums, all the more impressive given the stylistic variety from one to the next.
His latest, Adventures of Forever and Nowhere, consists of 29 tracks, nearly all of which are in the 1-3 minute range. I won't drill this review down to discussing individual tracks, but what we have here is a Prog Rock n Roll album. It's a 68 minute string of musical thoughts, chapters, and ideas just itching for further development. And with the theme being focused on heavy progressive rock it flows pretty well, rather than coming off as being too disjointed. In fact, several of the tracks stream together like a multi-themed larger work. In the past Greg has created some truly magical recordings that make full use of effects, and while those are well in evidence here, Adventures of Forever and Nowhere for the most part finds him showcasing his instrumental talents with a mostly conventional guitar sound. Which is just fine because there's lots of great music here, and reviewing this hot on the heels of the latest Jugalbandi album (see review this issue) I was very much in the mood for some more pure rock music. We've got plenty of guitar driven hard rock n roll with a progressive rock edge, fiery garage-surf rock, melodic psychedelically tinged pieces, Space Rock and soundscape vignettes that manage to explore, despite their brevity. The one long track on the CD is the 8 minute "Mutation Night", which begins with a trademark Segal rock style, and then transitions to an electronica segment before launching into a heavy driving and awesomely monstrous 70's inspired hard rock/prog/psych jam. A nearly 70 minute roller coaster ride!
For more information you can visit the Greg Segal web site at: http://www.gregsegal.com.
Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz