It’s been seven years since Phideaux Xavier has released a
new album since 2011’s Snowtorch. I’ve
already have a huge admiration of this band along with Xavier’s work since discovering
their music back in the first of the series of Romantic Warriors: A Progressive Music Saga released in 2010 by filmmakers Jose Zegarra Holder and Adele Schmidt.
This year, they’ve released their ninth studio on the
Bloodfish label entitled, Infernal. Now
for me, I nearly had forgotten about Phideaux’s music, but when I heard he was
releasing a new album this year, I knew that the door was always opened to see
and hear what he was cooking throughout those years.
This is a conclusion of his trilogy which began with 2006’s The Great Leap and 2007’s Doomsday Afternoon. So when I was
listening to Infernal, I can imagine
Phideaux is finally relieved completed the three stories and it is him finally
reaching the light at the end of the tunnel. Back in 2011 when I compared Snowtorch as an alternate soundtrack to
the 1976 cult classic Logan’s Run, I
now compare Infernal as a score to
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
The artwork done by Phideaux member Molly Rutten, captures
the similarities of Alphataurus sole self-titled 1973 debut, Le Orme’s Uomo Di Pezza, and King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King. The
subject throughout the entire album tackles the situations of Fear, Terror, and
Hope. From the pounding sections between guitar and piano on The Error Lives On, gives us a greeting
for more bad news of giving the descriptions for bigger problems and it isn’t
looking too good.
The rhythm tips its hat to Jethro Tull’s A Passion Play as Phideaux and Valerie
take the listener to task on the danger and asking the questions on if they had
given the news to them or not. On Crumble,
Valerie Gracious sings this beautiful piece as if her character is getting
close to dying in the streets as the war rages on as she gives us the last rite
before she closes her eyes and going into the afterlife.
The door opens more to the dystopian atmospheric landscape
on the opening track, Cast Out and Cold as
the vocals and organ sets up the nightmare. The guitars and vocals come rising
up as if opening up more of where we have left off in Huxley’s sci-fi classic.
There are some elements between Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain, King Crimson’s first two albums, and Alice Cooper’s Welcome to my Nightmare. And not only
that they work well, but it gives you some details that the pieces of the
puzzle begin to come as one.
We Only Have Eyes For
You runs us through the disaster through the rubble. With the watery effects
of the vocal arrangements of “You Better,
You Better Run.”, you have these medieval keyboard sections, acoustic and
electric guitars racing through the doors to escape the chaos, but big brother
himself will always keep an eye on them, no matter what if they don’t want to
be controlled or owned by the city that is near the brink of collapse.
Pino Rucher’s spacey structures on Wake the Sleeper becomes a deep, dark, and lonely space as Phideaux’s
vocals gives us the situation that there’s no sign of escape. Now I don’t want
to go into spoiler detail, but with Tumbleweed,
which is sung in the melody of Doomsday
Afternoon’s version of Crumble, the
puzzle suddenly matches each of the pieces one by one.
The 14-minute composition of From Hydrogen to Love has this militant rhythm in the style of
Gustav Holst’s Mars: The Bringer of War, throws
in some aspects of The Beatles, Muse, Morgan’s Nova Solis, and Banco’s Darwin-era.
It is a roller-coaster ride to some unexpected moments that shows Phideaux has
done his homework going from hard, Italian Prog, Baroque Pop, to a teensy-bit
of some cookie-monster vocals which I might think it happens near the midsection for a couple of seconds.
But here's my take on Phideaux's new album. This is now my 14th time listening to Infernal. And it’s a welcoming return
for Phideaux. This album has grown on me even more. While the trilogy has come
full circle, I hope one of these days Phideaux turns the trilogy into either a
graphic novel or a video game to bring the images to life. Is it too late to
say that Infernal is going to be the
album of the year so far? Let’s just wait and see.
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