ONE STEP CLOSER (E)

String Cheese Incident (SCI) is another band signed by the InsideOut Music-label from the so called Jam Rock scene, just like Umphrey's McGee, but the music of SCI contains much more influences of Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their music is fairly mellow and also influences of folk music can be distinguished. All and all One Step Closer sounds pretty dreamy to me. It lacks balls and most certainly the expected progressive touch as with Umphrey’s McGee. Is it bad or boring then? No, not at all, these five guys know how to play and they play lots of instruments like drums, keyboards, guitars, mandolin, accordion, dobro, violin, harmonica, etcetera, and with all five of them singing, their possibilities seem endless. Unfortunately none of the band members has got a real expressive lead vocal. The interesting thing about these thirteen tracks is, that One Step Closer sounds like a mellow country-rock orientated album, but if you listen carefully, you can also distinguish blues, blue grass, jazz and prog too. This wide variety however, is not enough to be of real interest of all those who are fans of progressive rock or progressive metal. The fact that this album was produced by Malcolm Burn - the producer of Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris - is another clue for what genre of music you are listening too. Surely an unexpected offering by InsideOut Music but of no particular interest to me.