the Mustard Seeds s/t

The Mustard Seeds
S/T
©1996 Forefront

Disclaimer: I like King's X, I've followed their career from around the time of Gretchen Goes to Nebraska being released until they finally failed to capture my interest or harbor my allegiance, which was about the time of "Tapeheads". I do like this CD, the following is a critical review...

So, some sage-ancient postulated, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Right and when do you cross the line from that pleasant little platitude and become a blatant rip-off? And, will the adoring fans care, much less notice?

The Mustard Seeds S/T CD was an assisted discovery for me. Way back when we had our first computer, a nice little Mac Performa with a blazing fast 14.4K modem, I found a guy that was a King's X fan in Texas. We swapped postings on some long forgotten bulletin board. Eventually we swapped tapes via the mail. He sent me several mix-tapes (which I still have in my possession) and on one of them were a few songs culled from this CD. Hmmm, nice stuff: melodic, pop with heavier underpinnings, killer multi-part harmonies lifted from the template forged by that band from Liverpool, some obvious influences, Queen/Sabbath/Beatles etc. Oh wait, there's already a band doing that?

The obvious and easy comparison is with King's X, whom they actually thank on the CD. To say that King's X is a singular reference point for this CD is like saying Nietzsche influenced Stalin, oh crap perhaps that's a bit ham fisted by way of comparison, or not. I mean, the melodies, the chords, the dual primary vocalists sounding like Ty and Doug, the tight grooves and the avoidance of ordinary intervals for chords and melodies. I mean come on, is anybody going to miss the comparison?

Okay enough carping on that end of things. I can tell you that occasionally they veer away from being an “almost cover band” and become shade more original than chameleonic (yes I made that word up). The playing is adequate and the songs are actually good. The production lacks the luster of the early Sam Taylor work that gave definition and clarity to that aforementioned power trio from TX. It's adequate although the guitar sounds generic, the bass a bit flaccid and the drums almost sound like a victim of poor mastering in points with subtle balance issues. This is nitpicking, so I'll again state, I actually like this CD.
I've been lazy and didn't bother to try and track them down via the Internet to see what became of them or if there's a rabid fan website or something like that. For all I know, one lives in my neighborhood and will leave a bag of flaming dog crap on my porch after reading this, although I suppose that infers that he will care enough to actually read and react to this.
I won't do the Amazon review trick where I go through each track and break it down and grade it, for goodness sake, I have a life and time is a precious commodity.

The recovering snob gives this CD 6.5/10 bags of flaming dog dookie

High points: Mother May I, Last Man on Earth

D