Dreadnaught has been called progabilly, a genre-forging fusion of old school progressive rock and Americana with a dose of jazz, classical and the kitchen sink.

19 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Progressive Rock, ROCK: Americana



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Highly evolved: Dreadnaught is inhumanly good

By SHAWN MACOMBER
Showcase Magazine Correspondent

There are two kinds of progressive rock.

There's the stuff you buy that is worth owning because of the sheer angularity and dissonance of the music, but ultimately doesn't go into heavy rotation. It's not music you can wash your dishes to, in other words.

Then there are the progressive rock bands who are so ferociously talented they can make the insane palatable - deliciously tasty, even.

Dreadnaught is firmly in the latter category and keeping good company. The band's originality bars direct corollaries to other bands, and, after listening to Dreadnaught, it is clear they wouldn't have it any other way. Nevertheless, for necessary reference points (this is a record review, after all, right?), we can list the group's spiritual cousins: John Zorn of GOD, Naked City and Masada fame; King Crimson in their less-metal moments; the last Mr. Bungle record; and whoever is responsible for the action music for 1960s cartoons.

Sans any sort of exaggeration or hyperbole, Dreadnaught's fourth studio effort, "Musica En Flagrante," is honestly unlike anything you've ever heard before. Fans of progressive rock, guitar acrobatics, epic compositions and the chaos theory are all committing a crime of musical neglect against themselves if they deny this record a space on their shelf.

It's been a few years since Dreadnaught's last record, "The American Standard," hit the streets, winning the band international acclaim and several awards. The intense touring in support of that modern masterpiece seems to have put the musicians who make up Dreadnaught - Justin Walton on guitar, Tim Haney on drums and Red Fez Records main man Bob Lord on bass - into a permanent Vulcan mind-meld with one another. It's hard to find any other way to explain how 19 tracks of visionary, instrumental rock, with virtually every style of music under the sun represented at one point or another, could be pulled off so seamlessly by mere mortals.

And what if they're not human? What if one night they short out onstage and we find out they're robots? If it happens I'll be the first one to say, "Amen! Let's build more robots!" Which isn't to say there's anything cold or distant about the Dreadnaught sound. There isn't. There are few sounds more uplifting than when Walton lets a reverb-soaked chord ring out before sliding into some finger-picked ode to life. I was thinking more along the lines of the "more-human-than-a-human" Replicants from "Blade Runner."

The point being, whatever the origin of the musical well Dreadnaught has drilled may be, we need more of the like. When was the last time a record really surprised you? Or inspired you to think about what was and was not possible in an entirely new way? (As a side note, Lord had some involvement with another band that opened up my head and rearranged my brain, Boston chaotic metal giants Converge.) It's one of the greatest gifts a group of human beings can give to another group of human beings.

This is why I love Dreadnaught. They make evolution seem worthwhile.