...2) Fantomas in Vienna: A band called Guapo opened, not bad at all,
but a bit monotonous. Then Patton delivered his most solid performance
of the six Ive witnessed, his chemistry with Lombardo was just awesome.
I mean, he did the same old tricks, but hes just mastered them to
perfection. The crowd here in Vienna was not as wild as the one in
London when I saw Fantomas for the first time, so there was less
adrenaline but more opportunities to appreciate the musicians. Lombardo
has so many toys to play with, and not one of them was superfluous.
3) Book of Horizons: I hope you people get that CD soon, I was wondering
why there has been almost no comment on this. I love this record, my
favourite SC3 so far and one of the best records I've heard in the last
years, no exaggeration. Spruance has been putting his musical/mystical
ideas in order and has put out the first part of a brain-catalogue. SC3
now consists of seven different bands, each with a particular style,
which however isn't 100% consistent. The nice thing is these bands
aren't new, they were already present on past SC3 records, but they were
not labelled as such. The new record fusions the experimental sound of
First GCB, the predominantly surf-rock-sound of Second GCB and the
predominantly Middle Eastern sound of Book M. Plus there are some
elements which where more clearly seen in Mr. Bungle, like the death
metal band which is somehow reminiscent of the song Merry-Go-Bye-Bye.
While really good, these metal tunes kind of disrupt the flow of the
music and don't seem to please everyone. I'm still undecided. What is
definitely missing from past recordings are Trey's techno-escapades,
probably to appear on the next records since one of the seven bands is
missing in BoH. I also find the whole CD booklet quite nice, it's full
of pieces of a mystical puzzle, which is intriguing. The new WoM website
complements the record quite well, as Efrén said, it contains lots of
additional information (and I don't think it looks that bad). So two
more records to look forward to, I just wonder... are they ready and can
we really expect to hear them soon? In the meantime I'll concentrate in
enjoying the wonderful Book of Horizons.
D.
