Izz is? This collection of 15 tunes from NYC area based Izz runs a gamut of styles in it's hour in your player. From 80's brit synth, to 70's epic prog, to spacey pop, I Move tackles them all, but fails to define itself. Hence, after 15 tracks, we really don't know what Izz is.
"Spinnin Round", the title track & "Weak Little Lad" are heavy on loop-like grooves & sounds. Switch gears: "I Already Know" & "I Wanna Win" tread some classic rock ground with more traditional instrumentation & a hook or two. The eight-minute instrumental "Star Evil Gnoma Su" gets down do it & displays some nice musical chops, with an industrial inspired intro that, I think, alternates between 3 an 2. Here's where the line is drawn between tastes—"prog" heads will love this while others consider it musical masturbation.
A couple of spacey tunes later, a memorable & oddly arranged "Believe" emerges as the best track on the disk. A nice idea, melodic chorus with background vocals, and conclusion. Kudos to the jazz guitar sounds here. "Knight of Nights" sounds decidedly 70's british prog, with moog sounds high in the mix. "The Mists of Darlriada" is a catchy anthemic instrumental, while "Oh, How It's Great" unfortunately trashes it's 60's pop verse for contrived instrumental bursts, which would've been left on the cutting room floor by a producer.
Which brings me to the production. This is a self-produced project, by vocalist/keyboardist Tom Galgano. While care is obviously taken to craft complex musical passages, the songs overwhelmingly bow down to the technical aspects and even more irritatingly are derived from them. Like so many self-produced acts, Izz are occupied with making sure all their rehearsed perfection gets full presentation, as opposed to letting the songs speak on their own. And, like so many neo-prog bands, Izz's songs are not the carrot before the horse, it's the chops. Again, some will eat this up, others will lose patience in the musical mayhem. Prime example is the 11-minute opus, "Coming Like Light."
Izz is comprised of great players, but the smattering of good tracks on this ambitious collection get swallowed up in a chaos of musical bombast.
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