The Devil's Staircase are a prog band consisting of five men from Sweden and The USA, of which Tim McCaskey (acoustic guitar) and Luis Nasser (bass guitar) might be familiar from the notorious band Sonus Umbra. This is the debut of The Devil's Staircase, and it is an instrumental album featuring five excellent compositions. All the songs are inspired by mathematics and science, and they all are powerful instrumental prog rock tracks with King Crimson-like musical characteristics. It is old school prog, highly melodic, sometimes rather jazzy and at certain times I even hear (or seem to hear) John McLaughlin influences as well. The epic song Morse ..--.. is based on a binary sequence, just like the Morse code, while Cantor's Dust is based on fractal geometry and that one is one of my favourites on the album as it is extremely melodic and technically utterly complex. Some tracks even feature sitar and violin, making the music of The Devil's Sraircase even more diverse and “weird”, but the sound always is blissfully melodic. So, check out this fractalprog album and be amazed, just like me, and for the record I do NOT like mathematics at all!! ***+ Martien Koolen (edited by Dave Smith) Where to buy? |
