Blind Dog

Captain Dog Rides Again (MeteorCity)
by Brian Varney

10 songs and EXACTLY fifty minutes of prog-tinged three-piece Swedish thrash, the vocalist seemingly aiming for a baffling midway point between L-G Petrov and RJ Dio, the guitars warm and comforting to anyone who knows previous MeteorCity releases, and the snare-drum sound nicked from St. Anger-era Lars (I hope these boys have good lawyers ’cause Metallica will totally sue over that shit!). Sounds like a pretty confounding concoction, yep, but it works, with the resulting stew likely to put a pretty large dent in your appetite for the rock. For the folks for whom simple volume is not enough, who base the quality of a song on how many chord changes there are, well, there are plenty of those here, too, though they are less obtrusive and showy-off than the proggy bits on, say, the second Drunk Horse album. It’s been said by smart folks that true art-rock manifests its quirks and makes its point without unnecessary “Hey ma, look at me!” gesticulating which compromises the quality of the music. What I take this to mean is that true artists and/or virtuoso musicians are able to play incredibly intricate, finger-boggling parts without ruining the song or even drawing attention to themselves (i.e. ZZ Top on the Tejas LP, which features some incredible playing, but you’d never notice if you weren’t looking for it because the songs are so great and the parts – technically stunning as they are – do not draw unnecessary attention to themselves). I wouldn’t quite put Blind Dog on the level of the Top just yet, but the principle is the same. So eggheads and mush-heads unite!
(PO Box 40322 Albuquerque, NM 87196)