The adventure, according to their official website is into amalgamated tapestries of progressive rock sounds to make innovative and expansive music first, while vanquishing pop hit formulas and transcend melodic barriers into sophisticated, experimental, sublime yet accessible pieces of art works for humankind. The project is called exo-X-xeno.
Try saying that three times fast. The band considers; Craig Maher on lead vocals and guitar, Billy Sherwood (Circa, Yes, Conspiracy) on bass guitar, Patrick Moraz (Refugee, Yes, The Moody Blues) on keyboards, and Jay Schellen (Asia and Yes) on drums. They have been around since 2021 after unleashing singles four years ago and focusing on their debut album this year entitle Luminous Voyage.
There are two illustrations for the artwork, but the music itself is the same voyage that can hit you like a ton of bricks, ready to exhilarate, prepare for the roller-coaster ride of a lifetime, and will make you take a trip back to remember when. Listening to their debut, I was taken aback on how incredible this project was.
I became skeptical at first, almost saying to myself “What if I didn’t like it?”. But putting this bad boy on, there are moments which speak of the Arena Rock sounds of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, the latter Yes period, and searing across the horizons to see what stories will take us.
Craig’s voice brings to mind, the powerful Steve Perry from Journey during the Frontiers and Trial By Fire-era as he gives his band mates to explore other worlds behind tracks such as the balladry turned ascending skyward for ‘Onward, Love’, the Rush-like attitude that speaks of Hold Your Fire with a rocket preparing for blast-off behind ‘Vitruvian Man’, and the folky Van Morrison-sque approach by looking at your reflection behind ‘At the Water’s Edge’.
The quartet have incredible chemistry between each other when it comes to the music that they have with each other in the brotherhood they share with. The third composition sees Maher going into this classical guitar-like fingerpicking approach which speaks of Mason Williams while Moraz creates this ambient voyage turned new age style to move out of the forest into a new horizon, waiting for us.
Sherwood himself is on fire playing his bass. Not just honoring Chris Squire, but doing his own approach, to follow his other band members in hot pursuit throughout ‘Reaching for Beyond’. It’s more than just the Yes-like orientations that’s on here, but the complexity and ascending arrangements flowing into view.
Moraz suddenly whips out his Mellotron-like orientations, prepping for battle behind ‘Into the Night’ as exo-X-xeno go into this meditated trance before the mountains rise up more and more, to witness the sun-rising in all of its glory for a brand-new morning approaching while the closing track ‘Live Life’ returns back for a joyful celebration to bring the Luminous Voyage, a wonderous ending.
Their debut release is quite a stretch of moving forward and never looking back. But what exo-X-xeno have done, is to bring everything full circle and moving on into the next one to see what they’ll come up with next in the mid roaring ‘20s. Because the game has just begun.
