Of all the tapestries of musical genres, prog has always had the potential to be the strangest. Apparently the cognitive ability that it takes to make a human being so musically and instrumentally gifted also has a tendancy to make you a bit weird. One need only look at the song names on The Owl (‘Honey I Shrunk The Squid‘ and ‘Owlgarhythm‘ being particular highlights) to realise that The Parallax Method have clearly got the weird part nailed firmly down; on closer inspection it becomes apparent that they also have the musical aptitude comfortably in their grasp as well.
The Owl is not (for prog) the most technically advanced album out there. There are no key signatures with algebra in them and it probably wouldn’t take an octopus to master the instrumental parts. But rather than this leaving an instrumental album with no sense of anything noteworthy, if you simply sit back and allow the music to take hold of you, you quickly realise that the songwriting itself is where the true mastery lies within this album.
Rather than being forced to pay attention to widdly guitar solos and a man trying to play every drum part for a 40-piece orchestra by himself while being attacked by a snake, you instead listen to the actual songs themselves, as it should be. You hear the grooves, you hear the simplicity in the riffs, you hear the skill that it takes to write instrumental music without just sounding like you’re trying to show off.
Simplicity without feeling mundane, elegance without self-indulgence, skill without boasting.
