Strangelight: Lux

Far be it from me to say that music from Texas is dull. Time and again, I have championed many a fine band from the Lone Star State. Yet, you can’t always be a winner, and this time the city of Houston misses by more than a mile with its band-in-residence, Strangelight. What is it about this group that completely turns me off? I’ve thought about it and come to the conclusion that it’s because Strangelight isn’t even half as interesting as its list of influences. And, well, when you’re shooting for higher than the highest pie in the sky and you don’t have the balls to roll upon when you land, then the whole affair is just one nasty mess.

But there are folks that are going to listen to Lux and be immediately wowed. The album does sport a nice production job, and the songs, no matter how bereft of anything vaguely “good” they may be, are well-played and sound like something Clear Channel would love to sink its teeth into, if only the songs weren’t bereft of a certain amount of satisfaction and other, bigger, popular bands hadn’t already beaten them to the airwaves for decades prior to their arrival. Look, just because your songs are well-played and your production is spiffy does not mean you have a good album to hear. Still, this fact hasn’t seemed to connect with any of Celine Dion’s fans as of yet.

In the band’s own words, Strangelight “laid the foundation for what will soon become the next great sound in the wide world of rock music.” Yeah, who isn’t saying that these days? They also say that their sound is “progressive, modern rock with slight classical undertones that mixes experimental ambiance with more traditional structure and melody while at the same time retaining a guitar based rock element to it.” Right. Already stretching too high. Do they succeed? Has it sounded like they have so far in this review?

They’ve been compared to U2, Rush, Porcupine Tree, Echo and the Bunnymen, and a number of other huge groups that have seen massive popularity over the years or in the past. I think comparing Strangelight to any of these groups is a gross miscalculation. To my ears, they sound like a lopsided mixture of Radiohead and Supertramp. I’m not the first to make the Radiohead connection, either, but do let it be known that I’ve always felt that band was one of the most overrated of all time.

The problem is, one can hear the band taking itself too seriously all throughout Lux. Lead singer Raman likes to belt these tunes out from the gut, going for powerful, operatic targets on songs like “Stained Glass”, but it’s just too silly to take seriously. I think of how this band got compared to Rush and realize that even Geddy Lee’s shrill shrieks of yore were more enjoyable than Raman’s wailing. And that’s saying something.

The flourishes of (attempts at) U2 come through loud and clear on “Hypnopaedia”, and the results are mostly nauseating. U2 was never a favorite of mine either, but hearing the band almost snap during its grasping at notes here is just embarrassing. It’s all smooth and seamless but the originality count is at zero. If this band wants to be taken seriously, then its members need to come up with some other sound that isn’t diluted melodic afterbirth of bands ten times better than them.

Then there is other piffle, such as the cheesy “Red Drums” with terrible vocals and seriously horrid synthesizers, or “Schizophrene” with more of those awful synths, seriously bad loungey vibes and some of the driest rhythm guitar I’ve ever heard. The guitar solo in the middle then does a Grateful Dead about-face and gets as pointless as anything Jerry Garcia laid down. Other songs, like “Fiction”, parade around in a bad pseudo-prog rock stew that can only be described as merely painful.

There is nothing here that is as worthwhile or half as amazing as other reviews have claimed. Lux is a haphazard, half-assed, dead-in-the-water attempt at sounding big and coming up empty. Will you listen to Strangelight? If you’re not a local fan, probably not. Should you listen to Strangelight? Well, feel free to take your chances, but don’t be surprised if you come away from the experience feeling like you’ve just encountered a bad night of karaoke.