David Bagsby: Transphoria

Nine tracks running 1:22 to the 14:32 gem, “Where Reason Steps”, offer zany, spacedout, twistedly rockish, Zappaesque works of strong guitars, adept synthworks, decent percussion, and apt bass. Fans of guitardom will remember Vai’s Flex-able and Ron Thal’s The Adventures of Bumblefoot, each offering peppy, fun-rock, tongue-in-cheek, melodic-riffage, and general guitar abandon. There’s plenty of that early on here but Bagsby go much further creating fully augmented and orchestrated compositions with warped synth snippets and extended side-trips into extreme whacky-ville or vision-land. At times you may get that Neil Nappe/( July ) flashback going. Bagsby even offers a very brief moments of manipulated male and female vox with lysergic flavorings. This guy has a plethora if interesting ideas — a veritable smorgasbord of sonic treats. This is recommended lightheartedly fun trippy-good stuff. Enjoy a Tibbetts-ian acoustic interlude with IASOS synths or a piano/symphonic synth outro. You’ll folks rebelling against mainstream, bored-to-tears pop or a myriad of noodling progmetal whankfests need to take a little diversion in Bagsby’s world. This appears upfront to be a “homemade” production, CD graphix and all, yet the essential essence of great music is to be found track after track. Long live independent releases like this one! Slick job there, Bagsby! High recommendations.

Reprinted with the permission of John Collinge and Progression Magazine .