Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: 7. 8. 2020
Production: John Payne
Album length: 60.20 min
Genre: Art Rock/Hard Rock
Rating: 7.0/10
Once upon a time, there was a computer game called Prince of Persia. You could play it on the Commodore 64, back when the early eighties were still a thing. Well, now we’ve got Dukes of the Orient too. Pretty goofy name, right? Especially for a band that works under a heavy influence of the AOR tradition, plus seventies prog rock. It would be a trivial affair if it weren’t for John Payne, the guy who somehow helped keep the cult eighties AOR sensation Asia alive through years of glaring genre irrelevance, when grunge was stomping across the planet and was later replaced by acts like Staind and Nickelback, not to mention the nu-metal outbreak. That’s the era of the band that many of its connoisseurs even prefer to anything Asia did in the eighties, when it was built around four well-known rock ‘n’ roll superstars. In that respect, Payne is definitely worthy of all respect, since Downes would never have created such excellent Asia albums, as the timeless studio gems “Aqua,” “Aria,” “Arena,” “Aura” and “Silent Nation.”
Well, Dukes of the Orient aren’t Asia, and Payne’s partner in crime, or close collaborator in this project, the superb American keyboardist Erik Norlander (Last In Line, Lana Lane Rocket Scientists), isn’t Geoff Downes (Yes). Still, everything gathered in this project today can be tied to Payne’s post-Asia aura of creativity, when he first founded GPS and then, slowly, through a few incarnations in which he tried to hold on to the Asia name, finally found his way to Dukes of the Orient. With Payne, “Freakshow” also keeps that Asia spirit that’s inseparably tied, compositionally, to his work in that band. Simple as that. Payne is a very distinctive singer, so he’s easy to recognize, since he leaves an intense vocal stamp on every track. That can be linked to his songwriting style as well. At times the songs automatically draw sensible parallels with the Asia era of the nineties, all the way up to the album “Silent Nation” (2005).
Norlander is an excellent musician, mind you. A multi-layered, seasoned keyboardist who slyly slips tricks into the tried-and-tested, hypnotically catchy framework of compact compositions, tricks that point back to the legacy of seventies prog rock. Within such a predictable recipe he still finds and uses enough room to let his exceptional musical talent shine through, which is why Dukes of the Orient come across as a musically self-contained unit. What you actually miss on this record is the guitars. In the production and arrangements they’re pretty thoroughly overpowered by the ever-present keyboard maestro Norlander. Meanwhile, the predecessor, the self-titled 2018 debut, featured as many as five different guitarists, including The Aristocrats wizard Guthrie Govan, which isn’t the case this time. Add to that the fact that Payne’s voice has thinned out over the years: when he closes his vocal cords, you can hear that it’s worn down a bit, and when he develops his trademark vocal style, he gets nasal and so loses the punch it demands. Although the tracks are skillfully written, stand credibly in terms of arrangement and at the same time achieve a pleasing mutual variety of ideas, the sound feels sterile, without real chemistry binding the building blocks together and without any signature magic. The sound is dominated far too much by the keyboards and by Payne, who no longer has that vocal freshness typical of past albums he sang on, the one that so intensely lifted the atmospheric reach and sheer pompous grab of individual tracks.
Straight up, no beating around the bush: “Freakshow” is by no means a bad album, but with quite a few reservations. Maybe it’s unfair to put it on the scales against the legacy of the excellent Asia releases from the band’s Payne era, but still. Dukes of the Orient is all that’s left of Asia today. That’s even easier to say now that Downes is focused strictly on working with the current Yes lineup.
Especially in terms of boosting the dynamics in the guitar arrangements, which on “Freakshow” come across as inferior far too often and don’t use the space available in the sound’s development, the album feels “unfinished” and gives the impression that its players were too quick to be satisfied with the result in the studio this time. A project with potential that surely won’t have the last word, though the 2018 debut remains considerably more convincing.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. The Dukes Return
2. The Ice Is Thin
3. Freakshow
4. The Monitors
5. Man Of Machine
6. The Last Time Traveller
7. A Quest For Knowledge
8. The Great Brass Steam Engine
9. When Ravens Cry
10. Until Then
Lineup:
John Payne – vocals, bass guitar, guitar
Erik Norlander – keyboards
Frank Klepacki – drums
Alex Garcia (Mayday Parade) – guitar
Eric Tewalt – saxophone
