Intodown Brave New World CD

The murky cover art on Intodown's Brave New World features images grafted onto other images, leaving a dreamlike landscape bathed in red. A face, looking like Lou Reed in his Velvet days, comes to the forefront, but even this face is vague, lost in the murk. There is an equally murky vocal near the beginning of the first cut, "Elevator," though the vocal, buried in the mix, is brief. What finally emerges in the eight-minute jam with the brief vocal, however, is more anxious than gloomy, reminding one of the early work of King Crimson. The title cut, a seven-minute instrumental featuring Michael Clark's guitar work, is equally imaginative. The backing arrangements are fairly simple, mostly bass-drums-guitar, though Intodown creates a full rock sound. The only downsides are vocal and spoken interjections. The abovementioned vocal on "Elevator" is mostly a distraction from an enjoyable jam, and the interjected spoken word parts in "Fire" (part of a Robert Frost poem) is distracting and borders on pretentious. The titles--"Revolution," "Revolution 2," and "Nostradamous"--are also a bit heavy handed, and like the spoken-sung parts, unnecessary. Simply put, the music on Brave New World works fine by itself, clearly sketching Clark's restless vision of the future (or perhaps of no future). ~ Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.

Audio Mixer: Michael Clark.

Recording information: Vortex Sound.

Intodown: Michael Clark (vocals, guitars); Steve Morgan, Lulio Guevara, Andy Van Hausen, Ed Johnson (bass guitar); Andy Tuttle, Ms. Morgan (drums); Smokin' Dave, Mike Gage, David Willingham.

Personnel: Michael Clark (vocals, guitar); David Willingham (trumpet); Mike Gage (drums).