REVIEW: Finneus Gauge, More Once More
- Dan Birchall
It seems easy to compare Finneus Gauge to Echolyn. After all, the Gauge are led by Chris Buzby, former keyboard wizard for Echolyn. Familiar sounds pop up here and there throughout their work. Both bands have five members and hail from the greater Philadelphia area. And both bands blend progressive rock and jazz.
After listening to the new Finneus Gauge CD, More Once More a few times, though, the ease of comparison is gone, and I'm left to face the fact that - but for a few scattered moments - this is a horse of a completely different hue. The differences in a nutshell? Echolyn was a progressive rock band which dabbled with jazz, fronted by the fiery, "in-your-face" vocals of Ray Weston. Finneus Gauge, on the other hand, is a jazz quintet which crosses over into progressive rock, and features the airy, passionately breathy Laura Martin.
These changes result in something difficult - if not impossible - to define. Finneus Gauge's list of ingredients - 'jazz, rock, fusion, funk inflections' - is so broad that one might expect nearly anything to transpire during the album's 72 minutes, and transpire it will. Five-second clips from this recording, played on "Name That Tune," would have contestants guessing everything from Marilyn Monroe to Dream Theater.
Martin's vocals are backed by brothers Chris and Jonn Buzby, who play keyboards and drums respectively. Rounding out the quintet are Scott McGill on guitar and Chris Eike on bass. With an average song length of six minutes, there's plenty of time for extended jazz, rock and fusion jams and solos, including two purely instrumental pieces totalling more than nine minutes. Lyrically, the self-deterministic angst beloved by Echolyn fans is complemented by a wry song or two in the style of The Bobs, and even tracks resembling traditional 'torch songs.'
The overall result is a repertoire which would sound perfect in any small, cozy club known for hosting insanely trendy jazz, rock and poetry, and probably populated by a too-hip-to-live crowd of art music connoisseurs sipping cappuccinos or microbrews. I doubt Finneus Gauge would appreciate being wedged into the "lounge act" pigeonhole - or any other - but if we could get music this good in lounges, the stigma usually associated with the genre would fade quickly.
The album is diverse - ask ten fans for their favorite song, and you'll probably get eleven answers. I've got some ideas about which songs will appeal most to fans of Echolyn, Dr. Demento or The Bobs, but this is music for intellectuals, and any attempt to second-guess your tastes would be disrespectful. Listen to it for yourself, and just try to draw comparisons to whatever you've heard before - I double-dare you.
This being the Information Age, you can e-mail finneus-gauge@juno.com, or view their homepage at http://ghostland.com/finneus.html for more information.
