MODEST MIDGET – Crysis (2014)

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A crisis is rarely enjoyable. MODEST MIDGET ‘s new album, however, is the rare exception to that rule, it is a “Crysis” you will enjoy repeating time and again in the weeks and months that lie ahead.
“Crysis” is the just released 2nd from the Dutch combo masterminded by Lionel (Lonny) Ziblat who writes all the music and plays many instruments.

The album is called “Crysis”, the “Y” instead of an “I” is deliberate as it was composed during an apex of global anxiety surrounding the impending ‘end’ of the much publicized Mayan calendar. As it would turn out, rather than heralding the end of planet earth, the Mayan calendar’s 2012 expiration date ended up more closely resembling the much ballyhooed ‘Y2K bug’, a lot of hand-wringing and frantic build-up to…
Well, we are still on planet Earth in the year 2014, thankfully enjoying the opportunity to hear a sophomore album from the inventive, catchy, quirky, diversely progressive rock band Modest Midget.
Ah, by the way, the lyrics on the album have nothing in common with Mayas or prophecies, all are earthy words represent different states of mind and different chapters in one’s life, and quite interesting.

And what musically are Modest Midget and the album all about?
Imagine a chef that is audaciously looking to create a salad mixing tomatoes, pickles, milk chocolate, fried chicken, hummus, honey and ketchup. Imagine he actually manages to make it, and it actually works!
The idea behind Modest Midget is to create inventive music, authentic and sincere, the biggest difference with other great Progressive Rock artists stuck in the same patterns and arrangements.
However, “Crysis” is about songs around the 3:30 minute, there’s no boring experimentation, just ingenious arrangements.

After the short atmospheric piece “The Grand Gate”, track #2 “A Centurion’s Itchy Belly” is an excellent instrumental which sets the tone musically for the entire album to follow. More than a few moments of this track call to mind Gentle Giant, although – truth be told – its stylistic reach is broader than that, freely incorporating middle eastern elements along with those of western prog and rock. There is even a ‘must hear’ accordion solo played in a style usually reserved for Hammond B3. Now THAT, my friends, is something you don’t hear every day even from a creative prog band!
It is followed up by “Rocky Valleys of Dawn’, an infectiously catchy up-tempo vocal rock tune worthy of airplay on Rock stations everywhere.

Just when you think you are getting this formidable and mighty (yet ever so Modest) Midget band figured out, they change the pace with the blissful ballad “‘Praise the Day”, a song boasting a vocal melody grounded enough to not lose casual listeners yet one also not without more than a few unexpected twists and turns along the way.
Then the opening distorted guitar chords of “Now That We’re Here” ring all the more ‘extra-crunchy’. The bass guitar thunders and the drums crash all the more mightily. Then, lest matters grow too comfortably familiar, a quirky interjection of joyous tomfoolery enters the fray. It’s yet another track that packs as much high quality musical content into three minutes and forty-two seconds as most classic prog bands manage to muster during an entire LP side-long ‘epic’.

“Periscope Down” then goes for melodic smoothness through sophisticated arrangements, and things get really fun on a cover of the classic “Pretty Woman” (originally performed by Roy Orbison and popularized again a couple of decades later by Van Halen). It’s crazy with a Frank Zappa spirit.
Modest Midget delivers another playfully inventive track on “Flight of the Cockroach”. Again, Ziblat tips his hat to none other than the great classic prog band from which his band’s namesake most certainly was derived by packing more joyous syncopated content into 2:39 than most bands muster during songs triple or quadruple the length.

The remaining tracks of the album are mellower, ending the disc on a softer side, starting with the progressive blues feel “Secret Lies”, which musically, this seems a combination of Todd Rundgren with Spock’s Beard in a lot of ways. I’m also reminded of Queen a bit on the harder rocking sections.
“Gone Is” has a very melodious harmony with some seventies feel, while “Birth” is a more uptempo modern neo prog plenty of nuances and beautiful arrangements.
But if what I heard is truly good (the entire disc), the highlight of the album is the self-titled track “Crysis (Awake of the Sheep)”. This is the longest track (7 min) and the musicality is simply awesome. Production-wise is impressive, plenty of changes and rich instrumentation: moog, mellotron, flutes, oboes, harps, saxophones, sweet guitars, atmospheric synths and tuneful vocals. A wonderful composition worth of endless praise.

Modest Midget is most fascinating band I discovered in a long time.
Although I’ve lived long enough to have survived, learned from, and perhaps even to have grown from a few Crisis experiences, I’m hard pressed to think of very many instances in which I have actually enjoyed a crisis… This album “Crysis”, however, is one of those rare instances. It is the rare “Crysis” you too will enjoy repeating time and again in the weeks and months that lie ahead.
Awesome album.

01 – The Grand Gate Opening
02 – A Centurion’s Itchy Belly
03 – Rocky Valleys of Dawn
04 – Praise the Day
05 – Now That We’re Here
06 – Periscope Down
07 – (Oh) Pretty Woman
08 – Flight of the Cockroach
09 – Secret Lies
10 – Gone Is
11 – Crysis (Awake of the Sheep)
12 – Birth

Lonny Ziblat: Vocals, keys, guitars, synths, sound-collage
Tristan Hupe: Keyboards
Maarten Bakker: Bass, keyboards
Willem Smid: Drums
with:
Dimitar Bodurov: Accordion
Yael Shachar: Violins & Viola
Jurriaan Berger: Keyboards & Midi programming
Eduardo Olloqui: Oboe
Emiel de Jong: Soprano, alto & tenor Saxophones
Sanne Vos: Horns
Anna Zeijlemaker: Flute & alto flute

BUY IT !
www.cdbaby.com/cd/modestmidget3
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