{"id":29069,"date":"2025-02-25T05:30:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T10:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29069"},"modified":"2025-02-18T09:37:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T14:37:00","slug":"album-review-mile-marker-zero-coming-of-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/25\/album-review-mile-marker-zero-coming-of-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Mile Marker Zero \u2013 Coming of Age"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-29070\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/mile_marker_zero.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/mile_marker_zero.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/mile_marker_zero-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/mile_marker_zero-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Listeners who luxuriate in the heartbreakingly fragile, melancholy moments within Steven Wilson\u2019s catalog \u2013 songs like \u201cThe Raven Refused to Sing\u201d \u2013 have something new they should hear. Even though Mile Marker Zero is an American group \u2013 from Connecticut \u2013 their sound has all of the hallmarks of classic-meets-modern progressive rock with a strong melodic foundation.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s just the start. There\u2019s plenty of power in the group\u2019s songs as heard on their latest, <i>Coming of Age<\/i>. Vocalist Dave Alley has a voice that soars, full of expression and finesse. \u201cA Place in Time\u201d is a brief opener, but it establishes a mood. From there it\u2019s thundering, mathematical execution of sharp prog hooks on \u201cBest is Yet to Come.\u201d But just when you think the song is going to explore angular, jagged soundscapes, the arrangement switches to a crowd-pleasing, handclap-y feel. Hints of post-Neal Morse Spock\u2019s Beard can be heard.<\/p>\n<p>John Tuohy\u2019s lead guitar lines are lean and muscular, while his rhythm work is finely textured and energetic; depending on what\u2019s he\u2019s doing at a given moment, he sounds like two completely different (and superb) players. The rhythm section of Doug Alley (drums) and bassist Jaco Lindito is always on point, laying down a rock solid foundation yet expressing nuance and originality.<\/p>\n<p>Keyboardist Mark Focarile occupies a spot in the group not unlike Richard Barbieri in Porcupine Tree. It\u2019s easy to overlook just how important he is to the overall sounds and feel, because his playing isn\u2019t spotlighted in the way that the other players\u2019 work is. He does take a tasty solo on \u201cTowns to Grow Up In,\u201d and a couple of superb breaks on &#8220;Heavy Days.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The songs are well-crafted and memorable. The playing is top-notch. The arrangements are inventive, never shy and always in service of the songs. Melodic progressive rock, American variant, is alive and well in the form of Mile Marker Zero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listeners who luxuriate in the heartbreakingly fragile, melancholy moments within Steven Wilson\u2019s catalog \u2013 songs like \u201cThe Raven Refused to Sing\u201d \u2013 have something new they should hear. Even though [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,56,62,65],"tags":[5632],"class_list":["post-29069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-prog","category-rawk","category-review","tag-mile-marker-zero","cat-49-id","cat-56-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29069"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29074,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29069\/revisions\/29074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}