I don’t really listen to much Progressive music, Prog, Post-Rock, or whatever the people are calling it nowadays. I do like some Pink Floyd, the Rush songs my local classic rock station plays, and the occasional Yes song here and there, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan of the Progressive sub genre by any means. That’s not to say I can’t appreciate it or have an inability to listen with an open mind. I can. I do. I can pride myself with a somewhat eclectic taste in music.
With that said, I’m truly sorry to say I didn’t know who John Mitchel is, or Frost, Urbane, Arena, It Bites, or any of the other seemingly fifteen bands he was in or part of. I haven’t dabbled in the genre enough for his name to ring a bell. So when I had an opportunity to review his first solo record Please Come Home under the moniker Lonely Robot, I took it because it was something I could listen to without any pre-perceptions. I have a confession to make: The real reason I took this record to review because I love the album cover. There are certain things in life that I have a soft spot for, and it just so happens that retro 1960s sci-fi ranks high on that list.
“Airlock” starts Please Come Home off, and after about a minute of the ominous piano note and tension building digital ambience, I already knew this was going to be one of those ‘concept albums’ that I was either going to love or hate instantly. But my feelings weren’t exactly instant. Then guitar kicks in. Not the kind of explosive, Les Paul plugged into a Marshall stack guitar, but that digitally distorted, compressed, Joe Satriani 1980s virtuoso kind of guitar. I was disappointed. Based on the band’s name, album cover, and first minute of this song, I was expecting something epic and beautiful and not something that sounds like the music that plays while waiting in line to ride Space Ship Earth at EPCOT. After a few ‘meedly meedly meedly weeeeeee’ guitar licks, yet another curve ball is thrown in my ears. The song comes to a complete stop and restarts with the bleak piano note drone and an almost horrific cries of what sounds like an uncomfortable infant crying right before it slides right into the next track “God Vs. Man”.
Sadly, that’s where the curve balls end. The rest of Please Come Home features medium tempo, synth heavy jams that feature very 80’s-esque vocal performances by John Mitchel and plenty of that over compressed 80’s guitar cheese. There are few times where there are peeks of something that could be special, like the wonderfully written and produced “Why Do We Stay” that sounds like he’s channeling a little Pink Floyd, or the chilling astronaut lullaby “The Red Balloon” but for every morsel of hope like those, we get songs like “Construct/Obstruct” that sound like Steve Vai playing guitar on a recording session for The Police, or “Oubliette” that, while having a fantastic chord progression and power ballad hook, ends up sounding so 1980’s that you could almost hear it coming out the Kmart brand after market speakers in a 1988 Trans Am (and not in that endearing self-aware way either).
On the whole, Please Come Home sounds like a compilation of soundtracks from English dubbed anime. In fact, just for kicks and giggles, I listened to a few of the songs while watching random, muted clips of Neon Genesis: Evangelion and Robotech and it fit PERFECTLY. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of anime and even those soulless over produced soundtracks, but that doesn’t mean I would want to listen to them willingly on my record player or doing anything that doesn’t involve myself drawing mecha based manga with over-sized guns, over-sized boobs, and over-sized eyes.
The stand out track on Please Come Home is “Lonely Robot”, a beautiful space opera clocking in at over eight minutes. Complete with layered vocals, clean guitar loops, thunderous floor toms, lush soundscapes and even a few well places spoken word spots by actor Lee Ingleby of Harry Potter fame (who also shows up for another spoken word section in “Godless Sea”). Is it enough to make the album good? For me, no.
This John Mitchell guy is obviously a very talented musician, composer, and producer, but with all due respect, it doesn’t do much for me. Maybe it’s my lack of experience with the genre. Maybe the science-fiction space opera lyrics were too deep and went over my head. From my point of view, there are quite a few unique song ideas within these songs but they are weighed down by that cheesy 80’s guitar shredding far too often to let those ideas flourish into something more. As a guitarist myself, I’m normally of the “everything is better with more guitar!!” rule of thumb but here it distracts to the point where I’d probably be embarrassed to listen to in public.
Maybe that’s one of the appealing factors with Progressive music. It may not be for everyone, but there’s that certain niche crowd that it really strikes a nerve with and it becomes theirs. If that’s the case, I can respect that. There are plenty of things that I enjoy that I’m sure others probably think is weird but it doesn’t stop me from enjoying them. That’s cool. At face value and my inexperience, Please Come Home is pretty ‘meh’ for me. About 3 solid tracks, maybe an EP’s worth but the rest sounds like Otaku Rock (did I just coin a new thing?) either way, it’s just not my thing I guess.
Rating: 2.5/5