"Solipsissimus" is a great, self-knowing piece contemplating and reproducing the beauties of Nature. Anyone who respects indie and classic rock should have it—even wharfage buccaneers. The reasons are hereunder:
Joe Valdarno’s intonation sounds like Marc Almond, Colin Blunstone, David Crosby & Klaus Meine intersected and had a hybrid nurseling christened by The Beatles! It’s very mellifluous and fits perfectly with the most la-di-da of demands for classic rock; it possesses a capturing essence that leads the listener throughout the entire record really setting a sconcheon arch and backbone for its vibe.
Andy Kodiwein’s guitar and bass are doubtlessly powerful but also varying so your ears don’t get Franssen Effect peeved by the repetitious gestalts that most of today’s CDs debar only in singles—in other words, it’s not another case study where you hear a single composition, cop the album, see the single was the best thing on it and the other tracks are just perennial carousels of triteness to say the least. On "Gun above Her Bed” Andy jams a Woodstock, party type of play that amazingly breaks in 2:27 with neo-folk, quasi-heroic modulation when Valdarno cantillates: "no pictures on the wall // she said she burnt them all // the tray above her bed // she hung a gun instead!”; on "10 minutes of truth" there is a C and W, dark Johnny Cash guitar (melody or singing, however, aren't country, thank god); on hidden, antic track "H2O" Mr. Kodiwein plays psychedelic jazz. And so on and so on.
The album has many excogitations, witty contrivances, solos and progressive goodies worth hearing. Given the previous experience of the band members, mature lyrics, adequate vocals, pukka bass+guitar, HQ and out-of-the-world, elysian drumplay of Marco Minnemann—which is very shifting, hardcorely surmounted and complex, of Chad Smith’s league and much better—"Solipsissimus" proffers you an album with masterful lineament and sounds that are anything but first-album-demo-experiment or wannabe. There is a great future for 26, indeed.

k9z
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