NEW MUSIC CORNER # 177 UMPHREY'S MCGEE/ACE FREHLEY

[RJhog (Admin)]

Umphrey's McGee - Similar Skin

1. The Linear

2. Hourglass

3. Similar Skin

4. Puppet String

5. Bridgeless

Ace Frehley - Space Invader

6. Space Invader

7. I Wanna Hold You

8. Change

9. Past The Milky Way

10. The Joker

[Scott]

spACEman FREHELYs comet ...  Thumbs almost up

How can you not like this?   Easily the biggest mistake KISS made was not respecting this guy...  His guitar is still innovative (so Gene's argument is garbage) and ability to write a rock and roll song still in tact.  Lyrically weak, but we've hashed that out before, its expected.  I don't think anyone thinks that Ace is a deep thinker, but smart that he plays to his strengths.  Love the title track!  The issue is this...  I love what I hear but with the exception of his debut solo album I don't find myself reaching into the collection to spin his other work very often at all.  Thought that would change with Anomaly but it didn't.  I wonder if this would help?  We shall see, for now its on the wish list...

[Scott]

UMPHREYS MCGEE ... Two intrigued thumbs !!

Never heard of this band, never ever come across them anywhere until now.  But...  this opening track has me interested right away!  Proggie? Jazzy?  Love the bass work...  Hourglass is step down but its still quite nice, more pop rock, but I did like the guitar work, especially the dual geetar at the end, even if it was all to brief. More jazz components in the title track, I think this is a pleasant tune, seems this band is more comfortable with jazz rock than the pop rock heard in the Hourglass track.  Would love to hear more of their guitarist incorporated into the tunes - their really good!  Nice mellow Police-like feel to Puppet String and then it goes into their comfort jazzy zone.  Gotta say, I like this!!  Bridgeless has a very cool and proggy feel to it.  Where'd you find this band?

You've given me much to think about with this Umphrey McGee!!

[Jon]

Umphrey's McGee--Thumbs Up

The first song sounded like Al Stewart mixed with The Police. Interesting combo. It started to drag a bit with the fifth song, but overall it was a good listen. Kinda proggy, but kinda not. Haven't they been featured before on this here site? Either that or they were on a prog station I listened to a few years ago. Even though I like it, I can't justify a purchase because I don't think I would visit it a lot. Who knows.    

[Scott]

a quick site search reveals that it was not this site that posted them, so not featured on here before now ...

[RJhog (Admin)]

Somebody posted a song by them on the CRB FB Group page.  But I already had this on my wish list at that time.  I had been holding off until I heard that song.  It's just a band I had never heard of, but they popped up on the "other people bought this" feature from Amazon, so I clicked it, listened and was interested. Here's the song the other guy posted on CRB FB.

[Jon]

This is one of the songs I heard on that prog rock station.

[Jon]

Ace Freelee--Thumbs 3/4 up

Decent listen, kinda what I was expecting. Nothing mind-blowing, just pretty simple rawk. His vocals weren't really too annoying this time, it didn't seem like he was spitting out the words. Geetar™ was good throughout. I seriously ALMOST bought this, but held back. Only noticed one "yeah", but that was in the original song so I'll cut him some slack. 

Not the best NMC post this year (I have that honor), but a commendable attempt.