This reviewer initially thought he might have been on the receiving end of a mischievous industry scam when he received a single recently by an enigmatic quartet called SINE STAR PROJECT a few weeks back. Yeah, the song in question - an ambitious, Muse-esque affair called 'Bleeding Like A Dog' - was credible enough, if a tad overblown, but the band's singer called himself Peter J. Croissant?? I mean come on, pull the other one!
However, now that SSP's second full album, 'Building Humans' arrives, it seems this writer is going to have to eat his words along with the butter and jam that would normally accompany the aforementioned French breakfast snack. Because, not only is SSP'S prime mover REALLY called Peter J.Croissant, but 'Building Humans' is also a fine album by a band more than deserving of being taken seriously.
Actually, while we're on the subject, 'Building Humans' forces this particular hack to confront and get over another previously immovable obstacle: the sound of towering Prog looming in the mist ahead. Because - make no mistake - this album is steeped in strings, brass, stadium-straddling arrangements and the sort of potential Enormo-dome satisfying ambitions that only the budding Matt Bellamys among us are keen to gorge ourselves on.
There again, bearing in mind 'Building Humans' actually features 35 guest musicians and an entire brass band along the way, we probably shouldn't have expected it to sound like the UK Subs. Yet, crucially, this accomplished Southampton-based quintet proffer not only the virtuosity to pull it off, but also enough rare common sense to understand that it's the songs and arrangements that dazzle rather than widdly, 10-minute solos of the double-necked variety.
Thus, of the ten songs here, only the introspectively precise 'Chinese Drag Queen' busts the five minute mark and, while most of the remaining songs have epic aspirations, they say their paranoid, cloaked-in-secrecy pieces and get the hell out long before boredom can set in. Which is great news for ageing punk rockers like this writer who are still keen to broaden their horizons without having to don Kaftans and drag Solstice albums out of the pawn shop.
The single 'Bleeding Like A Dog' is a good pointer to the SSP sound on 'Building Humans'. Constructed around staccato piano, a memorable Suede-style "ah ah, de der der" chorus swagger and Queen/ Muse-ish falsetto vocal intrigue from Croissant, it's immaculately layered and executed stuff and only the first of several times where SSP sound like they have the arena-sized schtick all sewn up. Indeed, as soon as you clock the weighty, (Math) rock-y blow-out of songs like 'Brown Bread' and the widescreen excitement of 'The Temptress' then you soon realise SSP are pretty damn good at this supersize drama rock thing.
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Nevertheless, it's when they slow it down and bring on the ethereality that they really score. The eerily introspective 'Eternal Sadness For Men' finds Croissant asking "how do you find an angel when the sky is full of stars?" before the strings and woodwind kick in and it starts to recall Radiohead at their glacially pretty best. By comparison, they can also knit together something altogether warmer courtesy of the warm acoustics, sighing strings and glockenspiels on 'Little Bird' and then smash it down again with the nervous energy of the Huxley-esque 'Posthuman', which even mentions the "brave new world" in Croissant's claustrophobic lyrics.
In fact, it's a testament to SSP'S skill that by the time your reviewer's approaching the album's two potentially horribly pretentious closing tracks (the titles are 'Christmas Carol For The Dead' and 'Cathedral' respectively - gulp!) that he's not unduly worried. And, as it turns out, this new-found trust is well-placed, too, for the former features a fragile, hymnal feel and lots of great, Sally Army brass, while the ensuing 'Cathedral' is a moving, orchestrally-inclined finale which is actually every bit as celestial as its' title may suggest.
All of which conspires to take a torch and burn down this previously-sceptical writer's idea that SINE STAR PROJECT are just a bunch of mysteriously-titled jobbing, Prog-gy musos led by a bloke with a daft name. Far from it, 'Building Humans' is a timely, beautifully-executed album about life in the increasingly frightening 21st Century played by a group who pull off the deft trick of equating virtuosity with emotional resonance and make it count in the modern context. Good for them.
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