Brandon Boyd "The Wild Trapeze"

     When a frontman, or frontwoman creates a solo album it is to nonchalantly jump start and test drive a solo career, or legitimately try making songs that won’t mesh well with the image or sound of that band. I think it is the latter, but I am sure that these songs would mesh well with the band’s sound and image because they never really keep the same sound with each record, and their image is pretty adaptable.          As For Mr. Boyd, he carefully walks The Wild Trapeze while balancing choices of complacency or trying to change the world for the better, and conformity or individuality to name a few. The title track sounds like it may fit well on Incubus’ Light Grenades or Morning View. It is an interesting concept that this boy becomes a hummingbird, but I happen to like the end of the story myself. The overall tone and sound of the “Dance While The Devil Sleeps” is one of the most distinctive from the horse-drawn drum beat bringing a pretty consistent pace before the chorus calls for a slow dance with the somnambulist, and then you are pulled in deeper into the sound of something like Pink Floyd. The atmospheric backbone of bass is something pulled from Morning View, while the chorus has to be one of the most mainstream Boyd has created, besides drive, but this is “A Night Without Cars,” so expect there will be a more organic mode of transportation, and a slight twist. The “Revenge of The Spectral Tiger” is pretty furious in its lyrical vengeance as it attacks apathy, complacency, and codependency, but maybe that is because of the Chem 6a in. It not only takes “Courage and Control” to let your hair down and break down those barriers, but a rare  strength of the heart to leave those castle walls without armor in the battlefield that is love; after this song you might be crazy enough to follow suit. “Runaway Train” sounds more like the little engine that could; slowly pressing on with that beat and the occasional flute. “The more I try to separate, the better it fells to get right in the way.” “Last Night A Passenger” became a cruel victim of fate, and now is his lunch;I can only imagine what the effect the gastric juices may have on poor Brandon. Either I have been blinded by the sun, or it is simply because I was looking at this “Mirror of Venus,” and it’s not even that long. The last track is a short firecracker with an aggressive and prominent handclap section and a punk floydian sensibility with a catchy chorus. Indeed, “All Ears Avow!” My Favorites: The Wild Trapeze, Dance While The Devil Sleeps, A Night Without Cars, Revenge of the Spectral Tiger, Last Night A Passenger, and All Ears Avow!