Sir Eric Beyond and the Avant-garde
s/t
Flora & Fauna
I've always been a fan of male vocalists with really high voices. From Jon Anderson to Thom Yorke to Daniel Smith, there's something really compelling about both naturally high pipes as well as falsettos stretched to the max. So when Avi described Eric Beyond as having such a voice, I was immediately interested. And this self-titled release does not disappoint. It's a curious blend of styles, mostly a kind of proggy psychedelia with both pop and musical theatre underpinnings. Remarkably, the disc is only half an hour long, yet the instrumental passages (and a few tunes like "Seabisquit" are entirely instrumental) unquestionably recall the halcyon days of '70s prog; you can hear a bit of Yes, Faust and others in the arrangements. On "If this is the way", Beyond sings "If this is the way everything is falling apart/I want it to happen," going to the upper reaches of his falsetto on that latter phrase. You almost hold your breath listening to it. The pretty piano ballad "Shadows" also gives him a chance to go up, up and away, while on the uptempo "I don't follow", great bass and percussion work (and the guitar parts dazzle throughout) share impact with the hilarious lyric "I got to admit it, I can't listen to you/Cause you're consuming too much contemporary Cul-CHUR," Beyond singing the last syllable high and, uh, outside. Big fun! There's a couple of almost-normal indie-pop kinda songs here like "One of those days", but most of this is willfully eccentric stuff, and if you can't take that voice, you'll be weirded out immediately. Me, I dug the heck out of this; it really doesn't sound much like anything else, and I wish it had been twice as long.
- Kevin Renick
