Erik Scott: And The Earth Bleeds
Unsigned / Self-released
Words: Craig Hartranft Added: 27.06.2014
If you would have asked me what bass player Erik Scott had been doing for the last 30 years since his stint with Alice Cooper, I would have said, 'Probably a lot.' (The proper answer would have been, 'I don't know,' but I didn't want to sound like a complete moron.) His collaborations and output are as long as his musical imagination is deep. While a great deal of time over the last year has been spent with indie unusuals Sonia Dada, he's been off my radar since, well, forever.
It appears he has been in some form of musical evolution from the hard rock hijinks of that mad hatter Alice Cooper. And The Earth Bleeds, his second proper solo album, is more than a small indication of Scott's metamorphosis. This album lands him somewhere in the realm of progressive rock, touched with ambient and world music, specifically that of the Celtic variety. Always a bass player, but here Scott is more of a composer with the bass the instrument to bear his arrangements. It seems he had much of Free written as instrumental, the melody composed upon his bass. Then a trip to Scotland gave it new life. The country that gave us links golf, single malt whiskey, and some the best Protestant hymns got hold of Scott and his music. Free became a Celtic invested ode to William Wallace (remember the Mel Gibson movie).
But that motif and those tones infect many other songs including Gypsy Mother and the Royal Bastard, The Battle for Neverland, referencing Peter Pan, and more or less within Run and The White Mouse, both, I believe, referencing Nancy Wake, agent of the French resistance in World War II. Yet the larger motif influencing the album is something more ambient, atmospheric, and gentle. With And The Earth Bleeds and Loco Amour the music moves like a whisper between lovers on a cool evening, or with Weightless where it floats like a leaf on a gentle autumn breeze. The curious song on the album is Let's Do Something Cool Tonight. It's edgier than the other songs, more like traditional prog rock, no world music implied. However, because Scott's vocal line is rather suppressed, only the the phrase is clear. Conversely, you don't quite hear what some of those cool things to do might be, though they seem to have more to do with good deeds than going out for a night on the town. In the end, Scott's And The Earth Bleeds arrived as something unexpected in progressive rock and then became something curious and entertaining. Easily recommended.
Erik Scott - The Battle for Neverland
Erik Scott's And The Earth Bleeds arrived as something unexpected in progressive rock and then became something curious and entertaining. Easily recommended.