Barry Cleveland’s new album Hologramatron starts of with the inspired lyrics of Amy X Nueburg whose voice goes from calm and seductive to angry as hell in .05 seconds flat.
“Lake of Fire” lets Ms. Nueburg rant and rave about the hell of society in which we live while Barry and the band play the soundtrack to the end of the world being sure to add plenty of hypnotic doom. “You’ll Just Have to See it to Believe” gives ambient music master Erdem Helvacioglu a chance to take over the thoughts in your head and meld them with his amazing guitar playing. “Stars of Sayulita” is the song that is a must own. The shared vocals of Harry Manx and Deborah Holland sweep you off onto a journey into a star filled sky. Rather than fight for attention, their voices wrap around each other like flames in a beautiful fire dancing together before you eyes. The song stretches on for nearly 7 minutes before it quietly fades away into back ground only to be replaced by the distortion of the opening guitar riff on “Warning” which explodes in like a post apocalyptic transmission.
The albums only flaws in my opinion are the curious inclusions of 2 cover songs by Malvina Reynolds “What Have They Done to the Rain” and Joe Meeks “Telstar”. Both songs seem to disrupt the flow of the album like rocks in a stream. The strength of the other songs makes the choice of including these 2 covers seem odd. Barry Cleveland is a well practiced songwriter and the evidence to this is his extensive back catalog and this album. Buy it for “Stars of Sayulita” and enjoy it for all the rest.
Key Tracks: Stars of Sayulita, You’ll Just Have to See it to Believe, Lake of Fire
Doug Morrissey- Muzikreviews.com Staff
May 26, 2010
