Pure Reason Revolution:

Guerillas of the Surreal

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I don't sleep a lot-- in fact, I average four, maybe five hours a night. Seven hours is sleeping in for me. Don't get me wrong--I would love something beyond a ten minute"power nap" (another one of those pre-fab labels whose meaning completely eludes me), but the constraints of American time-sense--not to mention that pesky 24-hour solar cycle-- make that next to impossible. I'm not whining. I'm just saying.

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There's a plus side though--sleep deprivation, when utilized properly, can be an extremely effective creative tool. Once you've blurred the lines between dream and wakefulness, reality takes on a different hue. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

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On their debut album, The Dark Third, Pure Reason Revolution nimbly traverses such territories in a work that clearly establishes them as the new prog movement's best and brightest hope. What places this British quintet at the forefront of the neo progs is their uncanny ability to translate seventies progressive rock to a language relevant to the 21st century. They've managed this by drawing on contemporary influences such as Radiohead and Nirvana and tracing them back to what influenced those bands--Yes, Led Zeppelin and, of course, Pink Floyd. The result is an album that both pays homage to those influences, and transcends them.

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While I would hesitate to label The Dark Third a "concept" album, its title alludes to that part of life that is spent in the subliterate world of dream state. As such, it flits between idioms and musical time frames without regard to obvious references. This is most apparent on the almost twelve minute long "The Bright Ambassadors." The title itself being a reference to a line in Pink Floyd's Meddle, the track intros in a Fairport Convention meets Evanescence groove, transmutes into a melodic moment of strings and synths, evolves into a literary refrain reminiscent of William S. Burroughs as translated by Pink Floyd and lopes into a Fleetwood Mac harmony interlude before shredding into a bass and drums- driven climax that echoes Led Zeppelin's Coda days. In lesser hands, the resultant piece would have been chaos, but Pure Reason Revolution pull it all together seamlessly.

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Much of the reason The Dark Third succeeds has to do with the vocal interplay between Jon Courtney and Chloe Alper, who serve as the focal point of the band. They counterpoint each other so effectively that the actual lyrics become secondary to the inherent power of the tune. The tunes, though, ultimately make the album--Andrew Courtney's drums accentuate every phrase and James Dobson's synths, coupled with Jamie Wilcox's guitar riffs, imbue every song with a power that is at once both ethereal and firmly grounded in the elements of rock.

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It's August as I write this, so I think it's safe to start passing out "best of" nominations for 2006. I was skeptical concerning Pure Reason Revolution when I first heard about them, what with all the hype about them being the next Pink Floyd. Jaded critic that I am, I thought I would dismiss them as "Pink Floyd: the next generation." In one way, I was right--they are that. They've picked up the mantle that Syd Barrett absentmindedly tossed aside one day. But they have done more than that--they have picked up where he left off, passed it around to others who shared his vision in one way or another, absorbed their scents and created something familiar yet dangerously new.

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What Pure Reason Revolution has done with The Dark Third is nothing short of revolutionary. By delving into the roots of their roots and updating those roots, they have validated rock and roll in a way not heard of since Green Day's American Idiot.

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The Dark Third is easily the best rock album I've heard this year. And Pure Reason Revolution is far and away the best rock band to emerge in 2006.