Customer Reviews

Serpents in Camoflage

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

 

 

If you love early Genesis, chances are you'll appreciate Citizen Cain. Excellent musicianship, extended arrangements, and serendipitous song structure make for intriguing listening. Lead singer Cyrus is a dead ringer for Peter Gabriel, and his lyrics are inventive and interesting. Another plus: whereas Gabriel-era Genesis albums sound as if they were recorded at the bottom of a muddy pond, the engineering here is tight and crystal clear. Great 70s-style progressive rock.

Always looking for bands that play music and not sounds? Try this group (and its other albums) to find out how Genesys' old albums and their magic are not forgotten. For all of us that are still singing "looking for somebody..."

I think to blatantly dismiss these guys and "stick to yer Genesis and Marillion" is very narrow minded indeed. Going back to the early days of Genesis when they released "The Silent Sun".....even then they would have had some cash to get it together and record a decent record. But they never, most of the late 60's, early 70's Genesis material is cringingly rubbish. I agree with Marillion, The "Script"....for a debut attempt, is a progressive rock legend. And as with Citizen Cain, all with regular jobs, no cash flow, jamming in a Musselburgh flat before raising the cash to get to a half decent studio, they manage to release "Serpents in Camouflage!" I think praise where praise is due. This is an amazing album. An album that makes me wish I could write lyrics like Cyrus Scott, and play keyboards like Stuart Bell. This debut album is enough to make ANY musician/ songwriter proud. LIKE I SAID, in the "Somewhere but Yesterday" review, if only this music was sought after, money would become readily available to these guys through huge record sales, as it did with Gabriel/ Collins/ Fish etc etc. Keep it up lads. The new CD, "Playing Dead" is also a stomper. Brilliant.

Yeah, so there are the obvious Genesis comparisons. While many reviews I have read compare Citizen Cain to "early Genesis", in my opinion this CD sounds closest to the "Selling England By the Pound" era because of the heavy use of classic Minimoog and Oberheim synths Tony Banks was playing at the time. Maybe not quite as much organ as Banks employed--and Steve Hackett's amazing bass guitar pedals are absent--but otherwise there are ample similarities.

Cyrus sounds a tad like Gabriel and a tad like Phil Collins, but nowhere near the range and timbre of either. Oddly, he sounds stronger and more "Gabriel-like" when he choruses himself an octave higher or lower, which, it seems to me, was more prevalent on earlier Genesis albums (the beautiful "Stagnation" on "Trespass" for instance). If you listen just to Cyrus and don't factor in the music, he sounds more like The Strawbs' David Cousins than Peter Gabriel (check out "Burning For You" and you'll see what I mean, though Cousins is more gravelly).

Composition-wise, Citizen Cain songs are not as complex as most Genesis songs from the "SEBTP" era. Cmaj-Bb-Ab is still Cmaj-Bb-Ab, even when a cool Oberheim synth line is arpeggiating up and down the keyboard over the top of it. The chord structure of "Dancing Out With the Moonlit Knight" or "The Battle of Epping Forest" is more complex and satisfying than the more typical "Rock's Magic Triad" found in many songs on this CD. To their credit, Citizen Cain make pretty deft use of differing textures and tempo changes, much the same as Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant, etc. A few songs suffer from some random rhythm section mistimings that should have been fixed in the studio. I haven't listened closely enough to see who's off, but in a few spots it sounds as if bass is late.

If your perception by now is that I'm being overly critical, it's because I'm contrasting this CD with one of the finest prog classics ever -- because it sounds something like Genesis' "SEBTP" and because anyone who loves prog HAS that CD and can use what I've written as a benchmark for comparison. There's still a lot to like about this CD--some very immediately likable and catchy material. If you can't get enough of that classic Minimoog and Oberheim synth solo line zipping over a solid chordal structure (like me!), chances are you'll like this CD a lot.

I'd give this 3.5 stars if that was an option...4 is a bit too generous, but I feel 3 stars would be unfair.

Great band that follow in the footsteps of mid period genesis. The singer reminds one of Gabriel on the Lamb. Great musicianship throughout this one.

The singer is a bad Phil Collins impersonator who tries real hard to sound just like him... without the intonation. This band is indicitave of my complaint with a lot of prog bands now days; they try too hard to be "progressive". Genesis wasnt trying to be "progressive". They just wrote songs and that is what it happened to sound like. The focus was on writing and performing original music not on capturing the sound of a genre. The effort came before the result. Citizen Cain are guilty of trying to sound "progressive" rather than trying to sound like themselves and it comes off as a poor imitation. The result came before the effort.

To me "progressive" means "uncompromising originality". In trying to sound like Genesis these guys are not at all progressive. That doesnt mean that they are bad though; just impersonators rather than innovators. Its a decent listen for those who just cant get enough of that Genesis sound.

It is difficult to dismiss the notion that these fellows are nothing more than pretenders. They play their respective instruments with competence but lack any original flair or creativity. The vocalist is certainly influenced by Genesis era Peter Gabriel and Marillion era Fish but has yet to develop a clear sense of his own musical identity. The lyrics, like many of the tunes, seem to ramble on without any great sense of direction. There is a sameness to the songs and their tempos that lean toward becoming grating after awhile. There is certainly talent here. Pity it never developed further. Aimless noodling can not disguise the fact that unlike the great prog bands there is little sense of melody evident here. Anyone who claims this outfit is superior to Gabriel led Genesis or Marillion with Fish at the helm, as some reviews for Somewhere But Yesterday (their second recording) suggest, need their respective heads examined. Give 'em a pass. Stick with your old Genesis or Marillion discs or turn to the Flower Kings for something a bit fresher...Simon