Tyler Kamen is your guide to extraterrestrial and psychedelic fuelled travel. Here is an artist that comes, assuming human form-putting his extraordinary skills on display. A poet, guitarist, singer, songwriter, music producer, video producer, photographer, graphic designer-a polymath in other words. It is safe to say no one from our species can exercise these many skills at once. These are the ones he chooses to admit. This is his latest expedition through space, Bamboozle Tesseract.
Imagine an energy volume that voids time and gives you infinite energy to travel the ends of the known universe. This is the soundtrack to that journey. I’ve been a Star Wars nerd most of my life, my fingers tingled when I saw what I had to review. Luckily, I’ve also been a Rush fan, so I’ve visited Megadon whenever Earth bogs me down. This is where I dove into this album with the eagerness of a 14-year-old without any prior fandom. Tyler Kamen delivered.
Tyler Kamen welcomes you to Gnome City
He opens with Introduction-Future X. A Floyd-esque chord progression is your key to travel, while you wait for the take-off. The Bamboozle Tesseract plays immediately after the 40-second opening. Like a TV theme, I can feel the goosebumps because of the melody. Upbeat and energetic, it reverberates with prog-rock exploration eagerness. The layers come together like a trifecta, the drums killing it on all cylinders, while the brass and the guitar form a dual-natured sword. It becomes evident immediately that a poet is writing these lyrics, imaginative and well-crafted, for the moment and story.
We get to visit Gnome City Lab. Feel a puckish, playful aura come over the instrumentals. The odd time riff is something you immediately feel grooving to. I spent my time picking apart all the layers, like I do for any prog-rock anthology like this. I already fear the end of this album, for it all exists within this time frame, is all. Furthermore, I might write fan fiction on this with Tyler Kamen if he pleases, but I have thoroughly enjoyed every second of it till now. Splitting Atoms zooms into a moment, the complexity narrated within the lyrics. This one was one of my favourites till now. Frames of time are spent in waiting for the process, where you lock into how the groove evolves.
Gnome City, however, achieves a breakthrough. Breaking News delivers the joy of the labs finally creating the Bamboozle Tesseract. Even in supposed interludes, Tyler Kamen puts in the effort of making it a cinematic enterprise. The incubation flourishes with Vegetable Medley. It is an instrumental extravaganza, Tyler Kamen conducting some of the most fun, riveting instrumental parts I’ve heard in a long time. Nuclear Core Meltdown shows it all go south. Riffs galore, while the invention folds on itself. What ensues is chaos, documented through Are You Mutant? To Intermission. We embrace this mutant development in Gnome City, through Lights Over Zezop Way and Cruciferous Creepers. I enjoyed the video game energy of Street Fight as well.
This article could technically be a thousand words and I still wouldn’t be close. This is sci-fi glory, an escapist haven for me to just get lost in. I’d prefer a sci-fi/animated movie of this concept, which Tyler has brilliantly laid out through the zeal and noesis of prog-rock. If you enjoyed this, listen to Artichoke Pythagorum, which you might get addicted to as well. Follow him for what will be explorations to different truths. Till then, the gates of Gnome City welcome you!
Links | Quality | Language | Player | Date Added |
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Play Now | Bandcamp |