House of Not: Evergone & the Immaculate Spectacular

Yngwie Malmsteen is one of my favorite guitarists. You are surely asking yourself right now what the hell that has to do with anything in regards to a review of this particular album by House of Not, titled Evergone & the Immaculate Spectacular. You would be right to do so, because his music has next to no similarities to this beast of a floaty, dreamy prog album. He is, however, the originator of one of my favorite quotes of all time: "Less is more? How could less be more? More is more." Turns out after listening to this 77 minute hulking behemoth of an album, that quote couldn't be any less true. At least in this case.

Evergone & the Immaculate Spectacular is 18 tracks of sleepy, slow to mid tempo prog rock that is mostly forgettable Pink Floyd worship. I don't remember a single melody, a single lyric, or a single damn thing on this album aside from the weird spoken word song towards the end of the album that features the singer of the band doing his best impression of a 1860's southern plantation owner giving the most whacked out church sermon you've ever heard. There are so many ideas thrown out on this album that appear to be there just for the sake of being there, and more often than not these things tend to be weird for weird's sake.

While the bulk of the album is the afore-mentioned Floyd worship, there are some twists and turns. There's a smattering of some welcome female vocals that alleviate some of the fatigue and boredom. There's also a couple of songs that almost give off a southern baptist gospel kind of vibe, but in the end the flavor of the day remains the sleepwalk dreamscape of reverb drenched lead guitars and keyboards.

I'm sure I'm coming across as overly cynical and just like a general hard ass here, but music like this just grinds my gears. I don't like music that has completely and utterly nonsensical themes. I don't like prog that follows the annoying tropes of the genre, especially the cliche of trying to cram a bunch of pretentious nonsense in at every corner. And I especially don't like when the album cover has a kid looking into the distance with outer space looming overhead. And while I don't like any of that, to somehow be utterly and completely boring over the course of this monolith has to be the thing I like least.

Tracklist:
01. Come On In
02. Fate
03. FingerPaint #50
04. Eternity's Garden - A Death Waltz
05. Our Last Tax
06. Take Me Away
07. So Sorry
08. Glenn Fiddick M.D.
09. Evergone & The Immaculate Spectacular
10. Goodbye Goodbye Hello
11. Show Me Tell Me
12. Yet We Remain
13. Behind The Curve
14. Spin Me
15. Piper at the Precipice
16. It's My Nature
17. Understand The Man
18. Kill The Buddha

Added: May 29th 2021
Reviewer: Brandon Miles
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 625
Language: english

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