From the artist: "The Great Leap" begins a trilogy of albums about life in a dystopic eclogically disintegrating world. In some regards this group of songs comments on forces that are already at work in our own society. Passionate, sad, angry and beautiful, this album is intended as both a balm and a sounding bell. "Will it be You against Them?"
Phideaux has to be one of the busiest artists in the progressive rock these days who creates top quality music on each of his releases. One of the refreshing things about Phideaux is he draws from many styles even outside the progressive rock genre and mixes them up to make his own niche in the style. His style is equal parts psychedelic and progressive rock and his influences include artists like Jethro Tull, Van Der Graaf Generator, Genesis, King Crimson, David Bowie, The Cure, and Pink Floyd to name a few. In a nutshell, the music Phideaux makes me of think of a ‘what if David Bowie fronted a band like Genesis or King Crimson’. Or how Pink Floyd would have sounded like if Syd continued on into the 70's within the band
Now he’s embarking his most ambitious musical endeavors yet, a trilogy with the first part called The Great Leap. After listening to this album, I found it to be the darkest edgy and aggressive to date but never too much to turn-off the listener. As I previously mentioned, Phideaux has a style onto it’s own that may not be classified as ‘prog’. I would honestly say the music on this album is more in Art Rock/Punk vein, similar to the late 70's/ early 80's but with a modern vibe both musically and production wise.
Every song takes you on a journey and gives the listener a experience that lasts well after the 55 minutes is up I’m particularly fond of the straight ahead rock and roll ‘Wake Up’, the beautiful haunting ‘I Was Thinking’ and the more psychedelic (You and Me Against A World of Pain’. But they’re all great!
Phideaux’ music gets better with each release while not overshadowing the previous one too much. I believe he’s saving the best thus making it hard to wait for the next installment of the trilogy. The Great Leap is by far a highly recommended release that deserves open-mined music lover’s attention.
Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on October 17th, 2006
