Customer Reviews

Bantam to Behemoth

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A great American prog band that I recently discovered. They list some of their main influences as King Crimson, Genesis, and the Zeuhl band Magma. This mix is handled wonderfully - the music can be very atmospheric, yet the instrumentation is always tight. Great sax solos, groovy drumming, and huge soundscapes. I've noticed that there are no reviews on Amazon for this yet but any fan of modern progressive music should jump on this album - great progressive music doesn't grow on trees these days.

One of my big gripes about King Crimson was that the melody actually became secondary. You could never latch on to anything congruent in a lot of their music. Not so with Birds and Buildings. While VERY Crimson like, their music is much more melodic and easy to follow. The KC influence is strong. You can really hear Adrian Belew stylings in Dan Britton's guitar work, (which is stellar) and Brian Falkowski's flute and sax segments fill out the Crimson sound. But each song has a structure and melody that pulls you in. Songs are almost hyper in intensity, yet compelling and easy to follow. Vocals are minimal. I was completely hooked in the first five minutes, and was in love by the 30 minute mark. Definitely gets a 5 star "classic" rating. While not an initial release for Dan Britton, I hope he continues on with the Birds and Buildings project. If you always wanted to get into Crimson, but just couldn't; or loved KC, then B&B will blow you away.