Preston Project: “Red is the New Black” – tight, intelligent and stimulating music!
Preston Project’s music is, as they may say, an acquired taste. This could give the band a strong core of dedicated fans, but also ultimately drive them out of existence. Why? You can’t produce this kind of complex, educated and fleshed-out music and get any kind of commercial success today.
In some instances Preston Project remind me of Curved Air or King Crimson only they’re more accessible, at others they remind of Yes, but only less grandiose. The real truth is that Preston Project has certainly created a sound that no one can imitate or degrade with the exception of themselves.
This is probably how rock, in general would still sound today if it didn’t have technology, internet, and globalization. Bands would produce good music based on what the musicians themselves could do, not on drum loops, samples, and sequencers.
With the release of the track “Red is the New Black”, Preston Project deliver a song of tight, intelligent and stimulating music, filled with stunning musicianship and intricate rhythms — and boy, can they rock.
Using fairly standard rock instrumentation as their foundation (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums), Preston Project draw upon the immense talents and backgrounds of its various members to add components to their sound that most other bands can only manage through recording tricks or guests in the studio. And here’s the twist – Preston Project’s ‘various musicians’, is a father (Michael) and his son (Andrew), from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Michael’s instrumental touches are perfectly in tempo, intricately interweaving, leading up to the point where the song kicks in with a tight and powerful rhythm. The track builds and builds until the listener wonders how Preston Project can sustain it.
The timbral combinations and tonal blending of the guitars and keyboards are essential to the character of the track. The track is crunchy, hard and driven, but there’s no excessive noise here, no unnecessary roughness or dissonance, and no flirtation with the notion that the listener’s pleasure and edification is secondary to the artist’s desire to be original.
“Red is the New Black”, which comes of the new 12 track album, “Global Reflection”, is a captivating and emotional track, that displays the Preston Project’s immense creativity and variety in a relatively easy to digest delivery.
From the plaintive and affecting vocals courtesy of Andrew and the beautiful, almost progressive rock instrumentation and arrangement by Michael, has something extremely satisfying for fans of serious rock music.
