Phideaux - "Fiendish" Review

Artist/ Band: Phideaux
Title: Fiendish
Label: Bloodfish Music
Year of Release: 2003
Artist/ Band Link (click for details/ ordering)

The Review:

Fiendish, Phideaux Xavier’s second solo album shows a very English sound to it with it’s eclectic blend of psychedelic, folk, space rock and prog. Most of the instruments are handled by Phideaux (vocals, guitars, keyboards). Adding an assortment of supporting musicians to flesh out the music. Instrumentals includes, theremin, cello, English horn as well as harpsichord The production on Fiendish has an amazingly crystal clear sound and a perfect balance between both the instruments and vocals. None are over-powering each other.

Aside from the strong psychedelic presence in each song, to attempt to classify this music would take away from the utter enjoyment one can have of Fiendish. Let’s just classify this as “very good” music from a very good musician. I’m always at awe when someone can write, record and produce music onto CD with such professionalism that takes hordes of engineers to even come close. Fiendish is one of the better recordings to emerge in the new century that pays homage to bands that came before without being deemed a “clone”. Get this as well as any of his other music as soon as you can. At the time of this review, Phideaux is working on his fourth solo album and it should be an epic of sorts.

Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on April 10th, 2005

Tracks:

1. Fragment

2. Animal Games

3. 100 Mg

4. Hellphone

5. Little Monster

6. Headstones

7. 100 Mg coda

8. Vultures and Mosquitoes

9. Soundblast

10. Space Brother

Reviewed Discography

Here are other reviews by this artist at ProgNaut.com.