RPWL - "World Through My Eyes" (Jim's Review)

(Warning: This review is written by a mere neophyte in the prog-sphere. Thus there will be no masterful comparisons with past artists and insightful placements in prog history so typical of my younger sib’s review. Instead, what you will get is relatively uneducated impressions, but hopefully ones that will help you appreciate what this band has to offer.)

Every now and then, you need to listen to a cd that is introspective, yet optimistic. Preaches love, kindness, openness and fulfillment, not anger, pain, sadness and angst. Then does it with the lush chords, the thematic harmony, and complexity of thought that goes into progressive music. Add LSD, and spice with Indian religious undertones, and you have RPWL’s latest effort ‘World Through My Eyes’. I have never visited Lucy in the Sky land myself, but somebody in this band must have, because this album revives the psychedelic ruminations that bubbled up through the music of Pink Floyd and the Beatles. Lyrics like “I am painting all your flowers, I'm the shadow of your dream, Who changed your opium to money, shiva calls your name, Why don't you sleep?” of the first track ‘Sleep’ or “Swimming inside nature, Diving through the flowers, Popping out at the bottom of the sea, In minutes that seem like hours” from the 5th track ‘Sea Nature’ give you the flavor. The lyrics are a trip, but to me the fun of this cd is the lush chords, often beginning with piano, adding acoustic guitar, background of drums, slowly building, building, transmogrifying with a twist into rapid warbling, spacey synth sounds and electric guitar until the neurons are all firing, and you turn the volume up until the endorphins are released, and you are completely lost, absorbed, every muscle is moving to the beat until the final concluding harmonies resolve, and fade…and fade… Could you tell I was writing that while listening to one of the tracks? Not a very scientific analysis for a scientist, huh? When you have songs like that, as you might expect, the cd grows on you with multiple listenings. I think the brain learns to anticipate the pleasure that is to come so that on second and third and tenth listenings, your brain turns on the endorphins earlier and earlier and you smile. It won’t be hard for Floyd-o-philes to gravitate to this album quickly. Floyd was probably the biggest influence in terms of style; indeed, RPWL was a cover band for PF way back. But you can definitely hear Beatle-chords and a few others that I have a hard time identifying. But with World Through My Eyes, they have certainly come into their own. Rumor has it that their previous albums were not nearly on this level. Dunno. Haven’t listened to ‘em. But if their next is on par with this, or even better, this group could become one of my top 3 or 4 prog bands. Might even make onto the desert island now!

In addition to the great synths on this cd, I really like the use of unusual sitar and bongo accompaniments sprinkled throughout. The other requisite for me to really appreciate an album is a good lead vocalist. I really like Yogi Lang’s voice; it’s right on key, expressive, and articulate. Somewhat plaintive. Gentle. As you’d expect from a somewhat spacey album, there are spaces in the music, allowing you to really hear the guitar solo, the drum solo, the synth solo, without having them drowned out in a sea of sound.

I’m not sophisticated enough to break down the rating into components (perhaps Kevin can add his own thoughts and rating here). I will say that I’ve listened to this cd more than any other cd ‘new’ to me, since December 25, 2005, when Trevor presented it to me under our Christmas tree. It is an excellent discovery. Thanks, Trev!