Something Strange: A Review

Artist: Paul Vicenti
Tom Paden

"Something Strange is a tale of what happens between moonrise and sunrise at a masquerade ball in a mysterious castle."

This is an interesting concept album, definitely not what I expected. The CD covers the musical portion of "Something Strange", a Rock Opera conceived by Paul Vincenti.

Vincenti is without a doubt a guy who appreciates *multimedia*. He designed the beautiful graphics on the cover and website, wrote all of the music and lyrics, and is working on the Live version of Something Strange to be appearing in February 2000 in a location TBA. Also, all of the tracks on the CD correspond to a storyline he has on the website, [http://www.somethingstrange.net.]

"Something Strange" in it's CD incarnation is a pretty good listen. I really enjoyed the way Track 1, "Rhythms on the Wind" opened, it had a "Lost Boys" feel to it with the drums and piano. Very nice indeed. I would say that was my favorite track on the album.

The CD had a few surprises, such as Track 5, "I've Got You In My Blood", which had guitars that sounded a bit like porn music. But, that aside, it was still a pretty decent track.

Notable inclusions on this album are the aforementioned Track One, and also Track Two, "Take it All Away", which featured very good vocals, I was impressed with the vocal blending on a few other tracks on this CD as well. *Definitely* worked for the album.

For those of you who enjoy musicals, "Dracula", "Nosferatu", what have you.. you will likely enjoy this neat album. The webpage is not to be missed, the animations in the Video section are amazing. Particularly "Prelude"..I have saved a copy of that one to my computer. *Very* cool.

--Something Strange are:

Music, Lyrics, Graphics: Paul Vincenti

Guitars, Additional Percussion: Craigger White

Vocals- Al Kraiker, Criss Thompson, Paul Vincenti, Chuck Holden

Backing Vocals- Caroline Cox, Rochelle Noble, Paulette Dewitt, Sophie Reinhard, Craigger White, Avalon

With Al Lucas(Textural Guitars), and John Masters(Piano, "One Day")