Refestramus, when you hear name like that from the Chicago-based band, it takes you right back to the mid-to-late 1970s at the hype of the arena rock movement when it comes to bands such as Boston, Aviary, Styx, Klaatu, Starcastle, and Blue Öyster Cult. This took me to this whole other level when it came to their third album, Morri’s Rock Boutique.
Following it up to their sole self-titled second album, Morri’s Rock Boutique visions more of the cinematic landscape with its surrealistic wonders, ghost-town amusement parks, and the haunting ghost that spooks the location. With the who’s who from Octarine Sky (Jan Christiana and Dyanne Potter Voegtlin), Joe Deninzon (Kansas, Stratospheerius), David Jackson (Van der Graaf Generator), Lynx (Old Blood), Crack the Sky’s Rick Witkowski, and Japanese vocalist Nam Chumo, it’s like a family, coming together to bring the story in full.
Released on the Melodic Revolution label, it sparks like a jolt of electricity, coming out of nowhere, seeing where Morri’s is going to take us. ‘Storms’ shows us those powerful rises from Aviary’s sole self-titled debut with a bit of Christopher Cross thrown into the middle. It seems like an odd way to start, but with the revved-up riffs, high energised vocals, sing-along chorus, and Queen-like structures, it’s a good way to kick things off with a bang.
‘The Cossack’s Dream’, is a traditional Russian folk song, known as “Oy, to ne vecher“, about an ominous dream by 17th century leader, Stepan Razin, who visioned his death and surrender. Joe envisions the song with a darker approach, viewing the Cossack’s downfall with a Peter Hammill-like approach, but down and heavy, featuring his wah-wah pedals on the violin, screaming out into the night, knowing the tragic downfall is about to hit at any second.
After the first two tracks, its time to get into a bit of the Jazz-Metal approach with Lynx going out for ‘Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, Tonight’. Trying saying that three-times fast! Mitch Lawrence pours his heart into his sax, blaring out in this smoky nightclub that has this film-noir atmosphere in black-and-white in the mid-to-late 40s, early 50s approach, but adding that biopunk vibration into the mix.
‘Lakeview Samurai’ which features vocalist Nam Chumo and Tanaka Seijin on his trusty Koto, starts off with an introduction that has this lullaby scenery for the first forty-nine seconds before it erupts by set sailing with pounding piano and a roaring guitar riff. Man, it sounds like an epic battle when Refestramus honour the works of Akira Kurosawa, The Slayers, Sailor Moon, and Tekkaman Blade by creating their own alternate score between the master of filmmaking and Japanese animation.
When we hear the clarinet playing the intro to Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ before being rudely interrupted by telling someone to shut the fuck up, they know New Yorkers don’t want to hear that. But going into this funky jazzy krautrock orientation which could make Van der Graaf jump for joy, they get inside their own version of the Millennium Falcon.
But with the help of David Jackson’s saxes, it transforms into foot-stompin’ scenery of the big apple in all of its glory as it hurls through the cosmos in a Hawkwind-like approach with ‘Hell or NYC’. But its Dyanne becoming the angelic voice of death, landing across the post-apocalyptic landscape of earth, viewing what has gone wrong with our own world in ‘Deathless’.
When she sings, she knows something’s not right, and something isn’t adding up into the piece. There’s the rising arrangement, rumbling bass orientation, native American tribal bass drum pattern for a brief moment, jazzy blues, and the dooming dystopian atmosphere in which George Orwell and Ayn Rand had envisioned in their books; 1984, Anthem, Animal Farm, and The Fountainhead.
When Rick’s guitar comes in for this Prog-Pop sound for ‘The Lucky Ones’, the first thing you think of the sound from Crack the Sky, but there’s a bit of E.L.O. meets Supertramp meets Klaatu right in the middle of the arrangements while Dyanne pours her heart in her vocalisations to give it the perfect send-off. But what’s going on the last two bonus tracks?
‘Another Country’ goes into this Starcastle-like concerto loop with blaring ‘70s guitar riffs which makes the jump to light-speed with a killer solo intro before heading back home with more powerful forces and blaring saxes going into the night in this barbaric ‘Wasteland’. Morri’s Rock Boutique is a pleasing, yet out of this world release that Refestramus has unleashed for the spring of this year.
