Last week someone sent me the link to a song by Mystery, a French-Canadian progressive rock band. They’ve been around in one form or another since 1986, but I’d never heard of them before. I listened with interest, then went on to investigate several other tracks by them.
I don’t know what to think. Musically, they’re very competent, and certainly fall into the progressive rock category. Their music is actually very good . . . but there’s a certain “sameness” about it. I think, if you were to select a dozen of their tracks at random and listen to them all, you’d feel as I do – that it’s hard to tell them apart. There seems to be a similarity between them, as if the band is recording the same music with variations. I may be doing them a complete injustice, of course; another listener might disagree with me completely. Nevertheless, I can’t shake that impression.
However, that doesn’t alter the fact that what they do, they do very well. I’m going to include three tracks this morning, to give you an impression of their music, and encourage you to listen to more of them on YouTube. They have a fairly impressive output. (The link is to Unicorn Digital’s channel, which is operated by Mystery and features other artists as well.)
Well, there you are. Judge for yourself. I’m going to listen to more of their music, because I think their quality is worth it, and I hope I’ll hear enough to change my first impression of “sameness”. We’ll see. You can learn more about them and their music at their Web site.
Peter
I always thought a lot of the songs of certain players/bands in the eighties sounded the same. Peter Gabriel and Genesis for example.
I'm sure their music is better than it sounds.
Don in Oregon