{"id":589,"date":"2011-08-31T05:02:50","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T10:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=589"},"modified":"2011-08-31T05:02:50","modified_gmt":"2011-08-31T10:02:50","slug":"cd-review-ben-craven-great-terrible-potions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/31\/cd-review-ben-craven-great-terrible-potions\/","title":{"rendered":"CD Review: Ben Craven – Great & Terrible Potions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sound of a heavy door creaking open\u2026deliberate footsteps across a wood floor\u2026the sound of an antique clock being wound. Those form the opening to Ben Craven<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cDiabolique,\u201d the opening salvo on his modern progressive rock album Great & Terrible Potions<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, when I write \u201cmodern,\u201d I do so referring only to the date of release. There\u2019s little that\u2019s modern-sounding<\/em> about this album. Thundering bass lines, athletic runs across the keyboard, string arrangements that swoop and dive…those are merely some of the sonic elements at work here.<\/p>\n

For some readers, that in itself will be recommendation enough. But for everyone else, there\u2019s much more on offer here. Craven\u2019s one-man-band production is a prog opus for the 21st<\/sup> century. With a radio-ready voice and a knack for melodies, Craven has crafted a record that can sit proudly on a shelf alongside your favorite prog classics of the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Intrepid listeners will pick up on all manner of sonic cues strewn across Great & Terrible Potions<\/em>. A bit of Emerson, <\/strong>Lake<\/strong> and Palmer<\/strong> here (especially in some of the lightning organ runs), a dollop of Pink Floyd<\/strong> there (most notably in the very David Gilmour<\/strong>-like soaring lead guitar lines of title track). In fact, the Floyd connection is overt: Craven notes that the instrumental track \u201cThe Conjurer\u201d is dedicated to the memory of Richard Wright<\/strong>. And it\u2019s a fitting tribute, with echoes (heh) of \u201cThe Great Gig in the Sky\u201d and \u201cMarooned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plenty of lovely acoustic guitar picking and subtle string-and glockenspiel arrangements adorn the record. Long passages are instrumental, but plenty of vocals are woven into the mix. And on that score — as well as many others \u2013 Craven is unapologetic about writing and singing lyrics like \u201cFox among the flocks of Gilead\u201d and \u201cEssence of pixie dust helps you soar ever so high.\u201d As he notes on his Facebook page, \u201cPotions<\/em> is dense, complicated and unashamedly pretentious — everything a good prog rock album should be!\u201d And so it is.<\/p>\n

Three bonus tracks show that in addition to his skills as writer, performer and producer, Ben Craven is a knowing, judicious editor. Single edits of thee of the main album\u2019s songs show that he can join separate parts and\/or pare down long tracks to create radio-ready style tracks. The single edits distill all of the tracks\u2019 best (and hookiest) elements into three-plus minutes, and do so without robbing them of the characteristics that make them interesting.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s anything disappointing about Great & Terrible Potions<\/em>, it\u2019s the double-edged sword nature of its being the creation of a sole individual. On one hand, prog fans should be thrilled that a musician working in the 21st<\/sup> century can produce a work of grandeur such as this all on his lonesome (and, it should be noted, without the \u201cassistance\u201d of a major label). On the other hand, there\u2019s a bit of sadness that comes with the realization that there isn\u2019t a group of four or five stringy-haired men somewhere (Brisbane, Australia, as it happens) creating this stuff, with plans to embark on a tour of world musical domination.<\/p>\n

The packaging merits mention. It takes some serious moxie to commission Roger Dean<\/strong> to create your album art; choosing the artist whose work is so closely associated with Yes<\/strong> <\/a>is simply begging to have your music compared to that of the prog-rock legends. Looking like the petrified ribcage of a colossus marooned on the Martian landscape, Dean\u2019s painting is successful at evoking the mystical, mythical and otherworldly ambience that any progster would wish for. Dean\u2019s distinctive lettering work only adds to the album\u2019s similarity to the packaging of a Yes album; in fact Great & Terrible Potions<\/em> looks more like a Yes record than does Yes\u2019 own latest, Fly From Here<\/em> (also sporting Dean\u2019s artistry). As a nice bonus — and a throwback to the days when we could wrap those gatefold artworks around our head while the record spun \u2013 the tray card unfolds to reveal a 9\u00bd\u201dx14\u201d of Dean\u2019s cover art.<\/p>\n

Great & Terrible Potions<\/em> aims for a wide-screen style, and delivers on it. This is music designed to be a soundtrack for visions in the listener\u2019s head, and the slyly reverbed guitar licks in \u201cNobody Dies Forever\u201d are begging for the Broccoli franchise to get their act together, film that next Bond movie and use Craven\u2019s song as the theme. And in case anyone doubts that\u2019s Craven\u2019s goal here (even if he means it in half-jest), the liner notes end with a riff on a familiar end-credits message: BEN CRAVEN WILL RETURN.\u201d Here\u2019s looking forward to it.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sound of a heavy door creaking open\u2026deliberate footsteps across a wood floor\u2026the sound of an antique clock being wound. Those form the opening to Ben Craven\u2019s \u201cDiabolique,\u201d the opening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589","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=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}