The Red Masque "Feathers For Flesh" (Big Balloon Music BBM1102, 2004, CD)

What does it say about today that bands that are not fluffy get categorized as "avant"? That's the pigeonhole The Red Masque are often stuffed into, with all the grace of the proverbial square peg. A quartet using standard prog instrumentation and a number of exotic/found percussion instruments, they throw the odd bone towards avant-prog, but more often remind me of Starless and Bible Black or Godbluff you know, the way prog used to be, with a spirit of adventure and a willingness to shock or unnerve or challenge. They have many ideas trying to bust through; rock, folk, free-form, art song, and so on. And if you're concerned that there are too many angelic wallflower chick singers in prog, boy are you in for a treat. Lynnette Shelley is no angel; she's more of a cross between Cyoakha Grace (Azigza) and Carla Kihlstedt (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum), although deeper than both. A modern comparison might be Devil Doll with the high gothic pretentiousness. Make no mistake, The Red Masque is certainly pretentious, with the narration sounding like something out of modern classical, the kind of stuff that survives due only to grants. At their best, though, which is most of the time on Feathers for Flesh, the Red Masque rocks out, and that is fun to listen to. While I feel their best work is ahead of them, they have come a long way in a few years and have leapfrogged most of the modern prog movement in artistic vision. Bravo.

Sean McFee
Expose Magazine