By John Deasey
The spoken word juxtaposed with music can be an immersive and rewarding experience, in particular powerful rumbling minor chord majesty such as found on GSYBE’s ‘Dead Flag Blues’ from their F# A# (Infinity) album, can take you to places that are hard to find.
Above all though, it has to be the music that provides the emotion and tone, and this is why I have always found Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds a bit clunky and obvious. Indeed, it now seems to have found its more natural home on the theatre stage, where the drama can be played out as first intended.
So we come to a concept album by Australian artist Mark Healy released under his band name Hibernal.
The Machine is ostensibly a solo release by Mark who clearly wears his Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson influences on his sleeve. No bad thing, in fact some of the instrumental sections are superb and have a spacy, fluidity reminiscent of the best of Lightbulb Sun, Up the Downstair and Signify. Don’t forget that Mr Wilson was heavily influenced by Pink Floyd and there is an element of Floydian dreaminess here as well.
However, the narrative sections simply don’t carry the album well enough for me. It might be my age (old !) but I’ve heard this corporate story so many times in different formats it is definitely tired now – the cliché of the giant company taking away any individuality and replacing people, or parts of people in this case, with machines is frankly old hat.
The first time through, it’s reasonably rewarding and you find yourself wanting to see what happens but after that, it becomes a rather tiresome, am-dram affair and I really can’t imagine anyone reaching for this after more than 2 or 3 spins.
There are no individual tracks as such that you could pick out and think ‘Yeh, I fancy a bit of that again’ and it really does need a full play through for maximum effect, so this in turn limits it’s repeat playability.
There is no disputing the artistry involved here. The recording is flawless, crisp and clear. The playing is precise and involving in certain sections and the actors perform their spoken parts with authority.
But for me, it just doesn’t work which is a shame as I really wanted to like it ……
