Spaceboy

"Searching For The Green Page Of Illusion"
(Southern Lord Recordings) 

-  Spaceboy is a good name for this band. They sure are a queer bunch! (And where did they ever come up with this album title? Got to be one of the weirdest ones I've ever heard!). Weird as they are, however, they can play quite well. Their sound could be described as Type O Negative meets Rush, with a  bit of speed metal here and there. Their music is dark, heavy, and doomy, like Type O's, but also uses some of the more sophisticated, melodic techniques of Rush. Singer (and self proclaimed "mystical poet") Clifford Dinsmore sounds a lot like Peter Steele, while guitarists John Kaufman and William Blair seem very influenced by both Alex Lifeston and TON's Kenny Hickey. Bassist Adam Cantwell's playing sounds influenced by Steele and Geddy Lee, while drummer Jade Dylan appears to take a lot of his style from Neil Peart, as well as playing a heavy, Type O style backbeat. As I said, the band is quite talented and original (they're doing something different here, I have to give them that), and their music will take you on a dark, spooky little voyage through the macabre. But be warned, there are some long songs on here. In fact, two of them, "The Melting World" and "Eye Pillow" are both over ten minutes long, and the whole disc goes on for almost an hour.  Not only that, but only five songs are listed (and numbered 2,4,6,8,10) when in fact there are eleven. It's hard to tell which song is which, or if the songs are divided into sections, or what. It can be confusing, and it's rather strange. The eleventh track is just a bunch of spacey, sci-fi style sound effects. The heaviest tunes on the album are "The Monsoon" and the tenth song, which include some of the aforementioned speed metal influence. This band are a bit strange, but they're interesting and different.

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