I think it used to be in the back of People magazine (or some similarly Hollywood-oriented rag), where somebody with a lot of time on their hands and a keen eye would do celebrity pairings and their imagined offspring. For example, maybe if Tom Selleck and a high ranking Catholic Bishop had a child, it would look like Ned Flanders or Dustin Diamond. These were amusing little image games and I find myself playing them a lot, even with music.

So, when I popped on a self-titled album by a Boston-area band called Nascent, I began to envision their musical parents. The spastic energy and frequent tempo changes are inherited from Mr. Bungle. Showy, yet emotionally blank technical guitar and drum playing pointed to genetic relation to Primus. And virtuoso, yet still emotionless guitar soloing reminded everybody in the family of their silly uncle, 80’s Hair Metal. It is obvious, even to a 3rd grade reader, that I am pretty unimpressed with the offspring of such ancestors, who have lost their luster themselves over time.

To start, Jeff Briggs (guitar, vocals, bass, synth) should not sing. It detracts from the music (barely tolerable without vocals) and his voice is not good enough to sustain the “prog-rock” shifts they employ. Speaking of which, one has to wonder if these guys thought that frequent tempo changes and volume/dynamics changes a prog-rock record makes?? As you move along through the album, another relative pops up. On “Beyond Logic” the heavier riff identifies shared traits with all those Faith No More records that nobody liked in the first place, but had videos cool enough to get on MTV. Hopefully these guys can get a cool video shot for one of their songs with a fish dying next to an exploded piano.

As I mentioned before, not only is their playing style flashy for show, but their verbiage is too, when it comes to song titles. Specifically, “Heraclitus Was Right” bums me out, because in reference to Heraclitus, the Word (‘Logos’), insists upon a shared experience and universal knowledge, but I don’t feel I shared anything in listening to this.

However, I feel it necessary to point out some things that hold Briggs and Libor Hadrava (drums) from being thrown immediately, indiscriminately into the garbage. Starting with Hadrava, he is a super flashy drummer, to the point of nausea, but he is also skilled. At times overdone, he finds many moments to hang back in the pocket, but without the symbiotic support of good bass playing (also partly due to the downplay of the bass in the mix). And he may be the only band member that can utilize his instrument with any emotional prowess. For example, on “Beyond Logic,” his syncopated, ridiculous cymbal rolls continuously drive the drums effect of uneasiness. Other than that, the Fender Rhodes on “Suburban Mornings” immediately recalls Bitches Brew/In A Silent Way era Miles Davis. Briggs and Hadrava can certainly play the pants off their instruments and that is their saving grace. They can actually execute the technical demands of the god awful, schizophrenic songs they’ve written, but it is bone dry, sterile

-Gabriel Bogart