INNER SIGHT-Voyage To The Stars CD Single
If ever there was a band with two diverse personalities, this Glasgow outfit is the one. I saw them in concert where they became this nuclear fuelled space-rock powerhouse, eagerly grabbed a copy of the EP to find a much more restrained band at play. So, along comes a brand new CD single and the anticipation of what we might find. Oddly enough, we find two more songs with very little room for any instrumental breaks, so it's still a case of studio identity. Clearly they want to be seen, certainly in the recorded sense, as a “song” band and, to that end, this is is definite step up from the first CD. “Voyage To The Stars” opens with quite emotive, laid-back vocals as a sea of lead vocals and multi-tracked vocals are added to an onrush of wall-of-sound guitars, drums, bass, synth and organ, bearing much more of a similarity to the liver sound, only still way back in the mix as the song rides on top, an arrangement that's quite powerful in many ways as it all builds from the back yet stays at the back as that vocal continues to soar through the song, the arrangement possessing a kind of chorus that keeps getting repeated as the whole thing takes of, gets to a point, drops back down amid a lead guitar burst that's still too far back in the mix or just too restrained, as the song continues ever onwards, flowing verses coalescing as the instrumentation is going wild at the back but still never interrupting that all-important husky vocal delivering the song with barely a pause for breath. Don't get me wrong, it's good stuff, but for a band who are capable of whipping up such a storm, you get the feeling that they're missing the wood for the trees here. “Sands Of Time” starts with an instrumental burst from the guitars and rhythm section topped by this stomping piano lead before the whole thing stops abruptly to leave this lilting piano figure as the crooning vocal enters and the song begins, once again the lurching rhythms, lead guitar and that upfront piano still firmly in the background as those lead and multi-tracked vocals start to lift off with, admittedly, strength and emotion if not exactly the most distinctive vocal around today. That the band follow suit is dynamic and forceful but that piano just takes the edge away. Then it drops back a bit, although now the guitars are allowed to take more of a lead role, albeit riffing, gives it more strength. Meanwhile, the vocal continues without interruption as the song drives and builds, the sonic wall flowing along neatly below the soaring, uninterrupted lead and harmony vocals, the song once again having no real verse-chorus structure, simply just “existing” as it drives. All in all, it's heady stuff, and enjoyable but with no room for instrumental work, unusually for a song, almost becomes too intense for its own good on a song-based level.