Steve Andrews - Beyond From Within (CD)
Sound:
C+ Music: C+
Ambition
is a very important thing to have in music today and particularly in Rock and
Pop Music, it is sadly missing.
Sometimes, you get someone who has good taste and gives it his or her
best to put an album together and so many ideas are swirling together that good
intents get lost. This is the case with
singer/songwriter Steve Andrews’ new album Beyond
From Within (2009), whose liner notes claim the culmination of the ten
tracks are meant to create a psychedelic effect, though none of the songs sound
older than the early 1970s and never like songs from that 1960s cycle.
His
singing is not bad either, but the sum of what we get is more miss than
hit. The tracks include:
1)
Today, Today
2)
Seven Strangers
3)
Picture
4)
Sidewalk Songs
5)
Temper My Desire
6)
Forever Road/Lonely Penny
7)
Between The Rain
8)
Soul Traveler
9)
Eight Card Majesty
10) Darkest Before The Bleedin’
Dawn
If
anything, the early songs sound like early 1980s New Wave (Echo & The
Bunnymen, Joy Division, U2 songs in that vein, etc.) and they are not bad at
that, but they never go beyond sounding like one of those types of songs and
have nothing new to day. Some lyrics are
decent, others are predictable, but he does have the idea of what those songs
are supposed to sound like down to the themes.
The liner
notes we received with our copy touts the album too highly without giving the
listener a chance to hear for themselves and should have used that space to
discuss other concepts or how the album was technically produced. Track 6 makes him sound like Gordon
Lightfoot, while snippets of some of Progressive Rocks’ more interesting acts
(think Emerson, Lake & Palmer) inform some of the style throughout whether
he realizes it or not.
However,
it is the final track that is a departure from the rest of the album, with an
almost dance-like backbeat and a more challenging arrangement as compared to
the other tracks. The biggest
disappointment is that he has a good singing voice, but these songs (and their arrangements)
rarely challenge it. I know it is the
style he has chosen, but that will not help him in the long run. However, letting loose would not hurt him
next time around.
The PCM 16/44.1
2.0 Stereo is a bit rough, though my copy was a press copy and I expect some of
the sonic limits are form the transfer and not the masters. He certainly knows how to get these songs
layered to sound like the songs we’ve heard before, but there was no new kind
of sound to be gained from this despite the efforts to make it sound good. Even with that, this sounds better than many
of the bad songs the record labels have been peddling for a quick buck, so I
will give him credit where credit it due.
Beyond From Within is interesting even when it does
not work and enough so that I will be curious what Andrews does next. He has potential to go further if he just
concentrates more.
- Nicholas Sheffo
