*** Labradford

MI MEDIA NARANJA

(Kranky)

Labradford represent that odd place where progressive rock lies down on its deathbed and confesses all its sins. The band drink deeply of prog's old instrumentation (mellotron, Moog, spooky chimes, oddly tuned guitars) while apologizing for the operatic bombast committed by groups like Van der Graaf Generator -- whose chord structures and tortured vocal styles are frequently quoted here, as they were on the 1996 Labradford LP. Mi Media Naranja is a sustained exercise in brooding meditation, from the slack, painfully slow guitar arpeggios that open the album to the analog synth and string lines that drone throughout. Given song titles like "S," "G," "C," and "V," you might suspect Labradford are pushing the pomposity index a bit high, but the music never quite becomes a self-indulgent noodlefest. It's too slow and deliberative for that: the band are too committed to their elegant explorations of droning atmospherics to put on showy, virtuoso airs. Maybe prog did learn something in its old age, after all.

-- Chris Tweney