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As the second son
of Rick Wakeman, Adam Wakeman has tasted both from the progressive
rock cup of tea as well as more contemporary rock and pop. As a
keyboardplayer for All Saints, Atomic Kitten, Victoria Beckham,
Annie Lennox and lately Travis, Adam has understood that, if he
wants to survive in today’s music business and wants to make a
decent living, he needs to concentrate on other things other than
purely progressive rock. Let’s be honest, although prog currently
unleashes more CD’s and bands than ever before it still is very much
an underground experience where bands most of the time fork out
money out of their own pocket in order to either record an album or
go on tour. Adam has toured extensively with his dad and even
performed with Yes in London when Igor Koroshev didn’t seem to make
it. Sadly for Adam he made it at the very last minute so they let
him do the encore as a thank you. If a band like Yes is confident
enough to let a young guy like Adam Wakeman perform without
rehearsing then surely they must put a lot of trust in him.
As said before even
when Adam still had long curly hair and was enabled to record and
deliver some solo material for the President label, his material was
more song oriented than the material one would normally expect from
a prog oriented artist. No doubt by means of his current involvments
Adam has turned even more to the shorter songs instead of the
bombastic everlasting epics with as a big surprise that he even
plays a lot of guitar on this his lastest album. Other than a pure
solo album, Adam Wakeman in 2004 is more like a trio with newcomers
Richard Brook on drums and Steve Davis on bass duties. The internet
says that Richard Brook is a professor but that surely won’t be our
man here. However we find his name on the website of the London
Music School yet as you can expect there’s no info on him at all and
even no photograph so we can’t know fur sure it’s the same guy
although we strongly think so. With a name like Steve Davis it’s
even worse. There’s Steve Davis the amateur radio enthousiast, Steve
Davis the video productions man, Steve Davis the man who delivers
material for US rodeo’s, Steve Davis the technical illustrator,
Steve Davis the Australian comedian and out there somewhere you can
find adult videos featuring Steve Davis. No doubt the latter
category could be our man having sufficient time left to play the
bass once he gets home after a day’s worth of filming ! In fact
‘our’ Steve Davis was one of the members of the band Shooter with
whom Adam toured in the States during ’98 and ’99. Enough humour now
so let’s concentrate on “Neurasthenia” instead.
I’m not really sure
why Adam picked such a difficult title as it means ‘a virtually
obsolete term, formerly used to describe a vague disorder marked by
chronic abnormal fatigability, moderate depression, inability to
concentrate, loss of appetite, insomnia, etc… Popularly called
nervous prostration, adj, neurasthénic’. So there’s a professor here
anyway ?
With ‘Lean on me’
Adam puts the most catchy melody right at the very beginning. Adam
has a slight soft hoarse element in his voice which makes it rather
original. During ‘Paranoid love song’ you would expect some
bombastic keyboard arrangements yet instead Adam concentrates
himself on some tasty rocking guitar. I do hear some organ in the
back which sadly is not loud enough in the mix. Right at the very
end though the song ends with some mellotron chords. The jokingly
entitled ‘Broken biscuits’ would benefit from a much more powerful
choir instead of the single voice of Jo Knight here but then again
budget is always the main issue with these kind of recordings which
often is a sad thing as you can hear the potential of a certain song
which in the end is not fully exploited. ‘Free ride’ is a fun song
which instantly is as catchy as hell. Play this on the radio and the
boy has his first hit in his pocket.
One would expect
this album to be bulging from guest appearances but it looks like
nothing in that respect is happening. However once you listen to
that magnificent synthsolo during ‘Sacred’ you’re almost certain
that dad Rick has entered the studio but it’s once again the
talented Adam himself. Maybe this is the kind of angle new
progressive rock should be taking : blending authentic prog elements
within a more contemporary setting without losing the main rhythm.
Remember those hollow plastic tubes you had when you were a kid ?
You had to swing them around as fast as you could and they would
deliver a spooky sound. It’s that sound which is to be found right
at the very beginning of the acoustic ‘180 daze’ which not only
features Adam on the wonderful Fender Rhodes but also introduces the
jazzy saxophone of Reg Chapman. Sade eat your heart out ! During the
final track ‘My poison’ Adam Wakeman fully experiments incorporating
different sound samples in order to deliver an audio canvas, a
surrealistic sound paining if you like.
If I
have to be really honest about this release I think there’s too much
stuff on this album to keep the listener concentrated throughout. It
had been better if Adam restricted himself to maybe ten songs saving
the other three for another album. Although the material on this
album is varied throughout some of the later tracks on this album do
sound a bit similar which due to the trio format does not give
enough options to explore the musical idea further. It nevertheless
is a daring experience having left the path of the obvious
progressive rock choice for more contemporary music. Wakeman fans
that are expecting ‘traditional’ keyboard extravaganza’s will not
find what they’re looking for however fans of Travis or Train will
probably enjoy this disc much more. Although this is a pure Adam
Wakeman solo album he should nevertheless ask for some guest
involvment for his next solo outing because I feel that the
inclusion of extra acoustic elements might do the arrangements a
world of good whilst injecting some wellknown names might boost
sales as well and a good sale is important if the world has to know
who you are. Ladies and gentlemen, after the wellknown “Six wives of
Henry VIII” comes “The second son of Rick Wakeman” with a decent
helping of guitar oriented rock to please the demanding musiclover. |
