The Underground Railroad - Through and Through
One of my favorite progressive rock bands is The Underground Railroad, so I thought it fitting that I start off by posting my reviews of their two albums. Here's my review of their first album. I wrote this some years ago. Enjoy!
This review appeard on Friday, October 01, 2004 on Blogcritics.org
The Underground Railroad - Through and Through
This is the sound of neo progressive rock, this is The Underground Railroad. Their debut album, Through and Through is by far one of the most prized CD's that I own. I can't wait to hear their second album The Origin of Consciousness, out sometime this fall.
Through and Through starts out starts out with the dissonant and jumbled rhythms of the song May Fly. This song, while I feel it is the weakest on the album, still displays the talents of the crew of four in song writing, lyrical writing, and musicianship. No stranger to song writing, Kurt Rongey's vocals and overdubbed harmonies, along with those of Bill Pohl's, flesh out this first song. The accurate and sometimes subtle drumming and solid bass work of John Livingston and Matt Hembree (respectively) prepare us for the rest of this ambitious album.
The second track, The Comprachicos of the Mind, likely takes it's name partly from Victor Hugo's, The Man Who Laughs, which says:
"The comprachicos (child buyers) were strange and hideous nomads in the 17th century. They made children into sideshow freaks. To succeed in producing a freak one must get hold of him early; a dwarf must be started when he is small. They stunted growth, they mangled features. It was an art/science of inverted orthopedics. Where nature had put a straight glance, this art put a squint. Where nature had put harmony, they put deformity and imperfection. The child was not aware of the mutilation he had suffered. This horrible surgery left traces on his face, not in his mind. During the operation the little patient was unconscious by means of a stupefying magic powder."
The "of the Mind" portion of the title, is most likely derived from Ayn Rand, who stated:
"The production of monsters--helpless, twisted monsters whose normal development has been stunted--goes on all around us. But the modern heirs of the comprachicos are smarter and subtler. They do not hide, they practice their trade in the open, the results are invisible. In the past this horrible surgery left traces on a child's face, not in his mind. Today it leaves traces in his mind, not on his face. In both cases the child is not aware of the mutilation he has suffered. Today's comprachicos do not use narcotic powders. They take a child before he is fully aware of reality and never let him develop that awareness. Where nature put a normal brain, they put mental retardation. To make you unconscious for life by means of your own brain, nothing could be more ingenious. They are the comprachicos of the mind. They do not place a child into a vase to adjust his body to its contours. They place him into a school to adjust him to society."
With these two quotes in mind, we are lead on an interesting musical and lyrical journey. Starting with a screeching keyboard intro, the song winds its way energetically through the first two verses, one of the most powerful lines is:
Sliced up into fragments of a life
Dissolved,We can never untwist this tangled web
It continues down the chain
Which is likely a poetic description of the way Rongey (lyrical writer) believes we are taken at a young age, and, as Rand says, molded and adjusted to fit in to the mold society has prepared for us. From here, the music slows down, and we have our first Bill Pohl ethereal guitar solo. Bill's sound is so unique, and so flawless, that it defies description. A low, repetitive base line with soft keyboard fills the background as Bill slowly enters the darkness that the music has provided. He enters slowly, and never turns the light on higher than that of candlelight, until he's prodded on by the growing keyboard intensity. The song goes through one more verse, then bleeds into the next song, an instrumental called In The Factory. This song evokes images without using words. It uses harmonic dissonance to help the listener envision grand machines, whether they be physical or metaphorical. It then softens, and lulls the listener into a false sense of uneasy peace, before exploding into a crescendo that seems to carry on forever and ever. Leading us upward and upward toward complexity, and confusion. Then, we seem to be transported to some point above it all, looking down upon the musical landscape that's just been presented to us, and left to ponder and recollect.
It is at this point that we are presented with the next song, The Doorman. It would seem at once that since these three songs are linked together, that they somehow comprise some theme as a whole. While this is possible, it is not completely apparent. Comprachicos and In The Factory can certainly be seen as two parts of a larger story, but The Doorman, while it could loosely be part of the over arching story of the two earlier songs, is more of an enigma.
Again, we are treated to the lush keyboards and flowing guitar riffs of Kurt and Bill. The soft yet solid bass lines of Matt Hembree and the subtle and but accurate drumming of John Livingston are more present on the fusion inspired introduction to Doorman. We are also treated to our first listen to Bill's softer and raspier voice during certain passages of this tune.
The story of this song, as I have said before, could possibly be treated as a final treatise on the theme of Comprachicos, but I'm not certain, and cannot make the assumption. It seems to be the story of a community of artists, or of a singular artist. It is possible that they have been forced to hide, because they feel they do not fit into the larger societal mold, the one that they feel they have been forced into since childhood, as is described in Comprachicos. It would seem that, in the story, one of the community, or the particular artist, has been lost, we aren't sure why or where. But we are assured that the artist will be welcomed back to the community, or welcomed back to wherever they've left from. This comforting to all of us who feel we don't fit in and yet have tried to go off and do something in a world we don't understand. Comforting to know that there is somewhere we can go and be accepted. I don't know if this is the proper interpretation of this song, but it seems to fit the themes in the poetry/lyrics of the song. It also fits the imagery of the music as well.
The next song is a break from the bleed together format, signifying to me an end to the grander theme of the three previous songs. This song, simply called Mars, is well written, and beautifully sung. Lyrically it is a simple song about the possibility of ancient life on Mars. It was most likely prompted by the finding of possible fossil evidence for such. It is a poetic look at how a new explorer from earth would feel, standing on Mars, being the first lifeform to touch the surface of that planet in several million years. Some good lyrics from Mars:
That's the way it was when I arrived
Only the sand
Sometimes the wind would blow it up in clouds
Uncovering another fossil
But I was there
And life was there again.
The title track, Through and Through, rounds out the last twenty minutes of the album. It begins orchestrally, slow, low and dissonant. We are treated again to the perfect blending of keyboard, bass, drum and Bill Pohl's ever present fluid guitar. The music grows, ever so slightly, with each passage. We are given what seem to be glimpses into the ideas behind the music, but they present themselves as changes only, and continue the progression of harmony, keyboard, drum, bass, and guitar. Sometimes keyboard takes the lead, sometimes guitar. Bill and Kurt seem to play off each other like they are of the same mind.
The story of Through and Through, isn't clear to me. I've heard Kurt explain it as a story about losing one's religion, and I suppose that can be seen in the lyrics. Who better to describe it than the writer I suppose, but let's deconstruct anyway, shall we?
The first stanza:
Through a life of growing older
Gathering motes within a whirlpool
Displacing droplets from whatever lives above
"From whatever lies above".. is he describing the evolution of mankind here, and our dreamy nature to ascribe what we do not understand to what is beyond the sky? Possibly.
The next stanza:
Warm and protected in a cloud
And through it all
Reclining in my corner of a liar's amorphous plan
These lines seem to indicate a sort of opiate is at work here, on the unsuspecting public. Could it be religion? It has been described as an opiate in the past. An opiate would make a person feel good, like they are protected.
Next:
Tagging behind the millions
It held me so softly
I couldn't escape without vanishing
Sometimes, when we want to leave a religion, or better still, a denomination or cult, we have to do so by severing all ties to that religion, denomination or cult. We die to the people who are still inside, we vanish. These lines would suggest this sort of imagery it would seem to me.
And:
Looking up into the perforated ether
I saw myself swaying like a leaf
I followed beneath and cradled.
A deluge of the rest of everything
A universe and maybe more
With one leap I had shot ahead
A famous scientist once said something about education, specifically education in the sciences, causing religious students to either question their god, or at least force that god to be even bigger than they had at once believed. It was then that they realized that these students no longer believed in the god of their parents, but in something even bigger, if even at all. This is the impression I get from these lines. The writer is looking up into what he once believed was perforations in the sky, letting in light from heaven, as is an ancient belief, and realized a universe, "maybe more", was waiting on the other side. Whether this describes one person, or the whole of mankind does not matter at this point. It can be applied either way. Once this knowledge is known, it cannot be unknown. We leap ahead in understanding, and realize even deeper and more disturbing questions await.
And skipping ahead a bit:
By hunger within was I flooded and freed
I wanted to lift a whole populace
The writer, or person experiencing these epiphanies, naturally wants to teach others, and lead others to this magnificent understanding. To understand that the world is so much more than we had at first thought it was.
But these lines:
Thrusting up into a fertile heaven
I pulled for a second then I left it to itself
I opened the box and looked on.
Seem incongruous to the rest of the work. I'm not sure what to make of them. Is the writer trying to grasp at his religious past one last time, only to give up in the end, or am I missing something else here in the literary device of the box. I'm not sure. I'll have to defer that one to Kurt himself to explain.
Taking cues from jazz, fusion, rock, and classical traditions, these guys don't fail to produce some unique and interesting tunes. Drawing us in with unique use of dissonance, rhythm, and meter, they never fail to present anything less than quality musicianship. I highly recommend this CD to anyone who has an ear for good Progressive Rock.
Buy their album at their website, here:
www.theundergroundrailroad.net
