Last year a musical duo from the USA got my attention all the way. I was really impressed by their album Arcana (2024, see review). This duo hailing from Los Angeles, consists of singer Circe Link and multi-instrumentalist Christian Nesmith. Well this year again a musical duo from the USA got my attention all the way. In a way it reminded me of the earlier mentioned musicians. Because again it contains a woman on vocals and a man playing on all the instruments. Or as they say it themselves:" There's only two of us, The Dude and The Little Miss. The Dude plays all the instruments, The Little Miss does all the singing". They are the progressive rock act Lifting Line Theory and released the album Wonder. Lifting Line Theory come from Simpsonville, South Carolina. They describe their music as old school progressive rock in the vein of bands such as Yes, Genesis and Rush. As mentioned earlier the band is a duo with Chris Carroll doing all the instruments and Little Miss doing all the vocals. At the start of this project, Chris was writing the album with a classically trained pianist, but sadly a drunk driver took her life. So Chris had to finish the album himself. This album is only the first part of the music they wrote together. The rest could be released in the next few years. Musically there are also clear similarities with the previously mentioned act. Especially the female vocals are similar and also ensure that there is a similarity with the music that Yes displays on their albums. Jon Anderson has a fairly high voice like both ladies. But also the bass work comes close to the way the late Chris Squire played on his instrument. Also the songs here are quite long in length. However the Rush influences are more notable on the other hand Genesis can hardly be heard in the music of both acts. As for the songs on the album, people who like epic pieces of music are on the right address. With two epics, it's sure to be a treat. The album starts with the longest of them and is almost 24 minutes long. In the old days of vinyl records Wonder would have been on the A-side of the album. It is most of all an up tempo track in which lots of breaks and strong instrumental parts can be heard. Carroll certainly knows how to play a good solo on the synthesizers and electric guitars. Also the vocals are very well done! The songs that follow are the compositions on the B-side of a vinyl album. Silver Spoon is again a rather up tempo tune in the vein of its predecessor. With Behind The Veil the pace gets down and we hear here a more mellow piece of music. However for the next track, the second epic Hummingbird, the tempo goes up again. It is once again a blast to enjoy and all inhibitions are released and the band pulls out all the stops for the last time. A great ending can be heard on an equally great musical album. Yes a great musical album is delivered by Lifting Line Theory. The Dude and The Little Miss can certainly be proud of what they have achieved on Wonder. By all means a top notch album. Maybe not very original, but I guess that was never the intention. Just come up with progressive rock album to honour their heroes Yes, Genesis and Rush. Which they did all the way! Bravo!!! **** Henri Strik (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
