READ BLOG CRITIC'S REVIEW OF BRAVE NEW WORLD

Written by Temple Stark
Published January 25, 2008

In a world increasingly grown malnourished on less meaningful words, a break from the earnest mediocrity is welcome. So, we have Intodown's Brave New World, almost exclusively an instrumentalist playground for sky-bound wonder, with a modern, self-disciplined kick.

Fundamentally Brave New World comes across as a solo performance, but a roving, revolving band of players back up guitarist Michael Clark. Clark has played professionally since the late 1960s and hitches himself to the psychedelic rock wagon as his preferred oeuvre, though the genre label seems welcomingly meaningless today.

This World spins in its own gravity and creates new mental life.

A persona and a CD cover show an individual who's a cross between Live and Let Die's Baron Samedi voodoo man and The Invisible Man. Whatever face Clark wants to present, his guitar seems far more sincere in its relationship with others. His play is a gift.

There'll be no spark-flying wankarrific air guitar accompanying a down and still-digging earth-riven axeslinger. There is no axe, there is no slinger. Instead, this journey winds through a cloudy world where sound reverberates close against black, towering cliff faces. The nearby trickle of water is not enough to make a regular sound, only occasionally does it rise into the waking consciousness.

And throughout, as a fog, travelers breathe in extended note-laden air.

A smattering ... Gary Moore ... of the history of ... Jeff Healey ... white-boy blues guitar ... acoustic Neil Young ... seems to ... Queensryche ... unfold ... Mark Knopfler ... throughout the course of the album. The lift of "Elevator" - with a beginning riff that could provide the undercurrent to the slow bridge of any nu metal pounding - is the first step. Mike Gage and especially David Willingham's trumpet slip into gear and engage here like nowhere else on this album.

Brave New World brings everything but depression into its orbit. This is not a Blues planet. The first hint of what this 53-minute collection is trying to evoke comes in the middle of the third song, "Fire," in the form of a quiet, almost mumbled reading of Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice":

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
?I think I know enough of hate?
To say that for destruction ice
?Is also great
And would suffice.

That is to say, though the album might have a tour de force where revolution (1 & 2), passion and fire heat a molten core, we listeners are a part of a quiet revolution.

Intodown seems to pull us through the urban part of of this new world, but ends on a shortened jingly twang as if opening us onto the wheat or ice plains of middle America or Siberia. "Fire," "V," and "Revolution" are all stages where none seek to answer questions, only question more.

Through these ears of mine, from "Message Understood" through "The Mission," and "Revolution 2" are difficult times of action bringing us to a slowed journey that, if not ended, at least stops for a while with solutions to juggle.

"Voice of the Past," "Nostradamus," and "The Return" create the period for reflection of what has just passed, what has been accomplished, and what still lies ahead to be done.

The tunes are overall longer on the average. They require a deeper commitment, more than a blinded glance into the shadows. Brave New World, far from the sardonic twist attached to the concept these days, successfully welcomes the listener to trust that they will be on firm ground without disappointment ahead.

Let's just say, as Clark hopes we might, that this belongs in the small, "good shit" corner of the music store. Following the journey here, even if does not lead to your destination, might be enough to propel the thoughtful - or the mass opiate avoiding - listener to their own lunar satellite.

(NOTE: This album was out on limited release late last year but is being more widely distributed and released next month by In Music We Trust Records.)

BACK