Spiraling
Time Travel Made Easy
www.spiraling.net
From: Most folks with flashy
talent head straight to the Big Apple. Others
move out to Hudson County, where they can
look across the river at skyscrapers as tall
as their ambitions, and hop jitney busses
to their sessions. Tom Brislin of Spiraling
wouldn’t even move to Philly. Instead,
he’s held the line in Dunellen, a tiny
Middlesex County rail town that, by its very
existence, epitomizes New Jersey’s addiction
to needless municipal divisions. Now there’s
some true Garden State love for the haters
to choke on. We don’t need your big-city
culture industry; we’ll make our expansive
pop-prog symphonies in suburban obscurity
and wait for you sybaritic fools to wise up
and come to us. Right, Tom?
Format: Full-length album
divided into halves. Note that Time Travel
Made Easy is not a CD with two imaginary “sides”;
instead, Spiraling gives the listener Part
One and Part Two to reinforce Brislin’s
conceit that there’s a story being told
here, which there really isn’t. “Cold
Open”, the kick-off, is a brief table-setting
instrumental, and the set closes with a short
reprise of a ballad with a couple of chords
switched around, a few seconds of silence,
and a faded-in instrumental jam taken from
the Part One closer. Genesis used to do this
all the time: they’d reintroduce a brief
version of “the hit”, you’d
think the album was over, and then the whole
crew would come charging back in with a variation
on one of the album’s melodic themes.
Spiraling is a pretty recursive act to begin
with, so they’re naturals at this sort
of sequencing hijinx.
Fidelity: Commercial-radio
quality. Spiraling often gets called “slick”
or “overproduced” by those who
demand murky sound from the underground. But
these guys aren’t corporate-backed “indie”
phonies – they’re an actual independent
band, and they’re out there sweating
the details for your sake. No leisure-suited
entertainment mogul is cracking the whip over
Brislin’s back – he’s motivated
by his own perfectionism, and it shows. A
Spiraling album isn’t something to listen
to casually and then chuck in the garbage
can or desktop recycle bin once you’re
done. There’s stuff going on you won’t
notice until the tenth listen; they’re
here to give you your money’s worth.
Mock his fussiness if you must, but call Time
Travel Made Easy what it is: generously and
luxuriously appointed.
Genre: Log time in the symphonic
version of Yes (as Tom Brislin’s did)
and it is a safe bet that the art-rock completists
will follow your every move with interest
for the rest of your life. Brislin’s
high-profile friends make Spiraling prog-rock
by association. But there’s no fountain
of Salmacis or giant hogweed or hut of Baba
Yaga here: Spiraling may consist of nerdy
dudes, but they don’t make geek-rock
records. Time Travel Made Easy is most reminiscent
of the records that the prog pioneers cut
once the hallucinogens wore off and the musicians
came back to earth: Abacab, Signals, 90125,
Alan Parsons’s Eye In The Sky, the first
Asia set, Breakfast In America, even some
No Jacket Required. There’s a reason
why Spiraling’s last EP featured an
Atari joystick on its cover: the target date
is 1981, not 1971. Me, I am an old dragonslayer
– or my elven wizard was – and
I’d much rather hear about the Battle
of Epping Forest than I would about Brislin’s
girlfriend. I am quibbling: the point is that
despite titles like “The Concept of
the Quantum-Mechanical Bodymind Has Sparked
a Great Idea”, most of the content provided
by Brislin and his mates is as reliably first-person
emotive as you’d expect from a band
from suburban New Jersey. For years, Spiraling
has struggled to find the common ground between
symphonic art-rock and hook-laden emo-pop;
failing to locate it to their frontman’s
satisfaction, they’re now determined
to give you both at the same time. This attempt
at cold-fusion may have been born of frustration,
but as it turned out, it was a wise move.
Arrangements:
Exclusively classic rock. Guitar, bass, drums,
Briz-whiz synth leads, hammering piano, combo
organ here and there, a little bit of that
Turnpike glockenspiel that’s been turning
up on indie records recently, some outboard
phasing, some percussion. Nothing’s
going to throw you.
What’s this record about?:
Time Travel Made Easy opens with
a reliably emo complaint – the world
we’ve inherited from our elders isn’t
anywhere near as nifty as we were told it
was going to be. In fact, it kind of sucks,
doesn’t it? In keeping with the time-travel
motif, the narrator of “The Future”
decides to take matters into his own hands;
by the beginning of part two, he’s got
“all kinds of science, both heavy and
light” at his disposal. But Dr. Oppenheimer
he is not: he’s constructing infernal
machines for personal reasons, not geopolitical
ones. On “All Kinds Of Love”,
he’s stopping the clock to spend more
time with his girl, later, on “Time
Machine”, he’s going back to the
beginning of their relationship, before he,
you know, fucked it up. Much of Time Travel
Made Easy reads like a guilt-drenched apology
letter to a wronged spouse. A few tracks drop
the sci-fi conceit altogether: “Are
You Here” is straight-up smooth talk
from a practiced player, and just the sort
that certain foolhardly chicks find irresistible.
So is Time Travel Made Easy the story a driven,
myopic chemist who neglected his spouse in
his quest for arcane knowledge, or an elaborate
mea culpa from an educated rocker who banged
some groupies on the road? It’s a testament
to Brislin’s writing that it works both
ways, but in spite of the physics textbook
designs and diagrams reprinted in the Time
Travel Made Easy packaging, I’m leaning
toward the second explanation. Especially
since the narrator engages in some serious
chain-pulling: on “Count To Four”
and “Borrowed Time”, you can tell
that his patience with his wronged girlfriend
is limited, and he’s not above using
threats and other tough-guy tactics to get
his way. “Count To Four” stops
juuuust short of a backhanded ultimatum –
even though the storyteller concedes that
he’s the one who “held the blame”.
“Victory Kiss” is a straightforward
expression of disgust at a fickle lover, like
those we might have gotten out of a metal
band in the mid-Eighties. The bitterest song
on the set isn’t even about a girl:
“You Might Say (No Transformation Here)”
is a broadside aimed against those who wonder
why an undisputed studio pro like Brislin
is persisting with the Spiraling project.
“You might say that it’s all a
waste of time/ all a waste of money and all
a waste of pride/ you might say no one will
give a damn/ no one will pick this up/ no
one will understand”, he sings, before
turning sharply on the accuser. So don’t
let the bookish metaphors and the pure, tuneful
voice fool you – this is an angry dude,
and Time Travel Made Easy is an angry album
sung by a narrator who did not get the future
he felt he was entitled to.
The singer: Tom Brislin
can be as breathy as Colin Blunstone when
he wants to be, which, considering the subject
matter, isn’t as often as you’d
think. “Count To Four” and “The
Concept Of The Quantum-Mechanical Bodymind
Has Sparked a Great Idea” get the two
proggiest vocals, which is to say that they’re
introspective, detached, and (with the help
of some heavy effects) even a bit dreamlike.
Elsewhere, Brislin reminds you that he’s
still the same guy who cut his first sides
for John Flansburgh’s Hello Recording
Company: crystal-clear, emo-present, urgent,
brainy, and not even slightly proletarian.
Then again, those who’ve followed this
project since the Nineties won’t help
but notice that he’s much less friendly
than he used to be. Case in point: a version
of “No Transformation Here” was
first recorded more than a decade ago, back
when the band was still called You Were Spiraling.
In the initial iteration of the song, Brislin
sounds like a nerd interrupted by louts during
a fascinating experiment; he’s petulant,
but geekily endearing. The Time Travel Made
Easy performance doesn’t even try to
warm up to its target – instead, it’s
a tortured intellectual’s weary assault.
It’s meant to make the listener more
than a little uncomfortable, and it succeeds.
If you’re cerebral (and vicious) yourself,
you might cheer this development. Nevertheless,
it’s clear to me that Tom Brislin’s
coldness on the mic is the primary barrier
to the commercial success he’s chasing.
The band: A Spiraling album
promises synthesizer pyrotechnics, and Time
Travel Made Easy delivers: Tom Brislin hauls
out the heavy artillery, gurgling analog arpeggios
through “Victory Kiss” and spiking
“Borrowed Time” with Moog glissandos
big enough to sweep Rick Wakeman off of his
feet. Still, many of the impressive moments
on the album are understated ones –
the near-classical piano on “Count To
Four” and “Enemy”, for instance,
or the atmospheric organ on “Time Machine”.
He sprinkles a little glockenspiel here and
there; he’s got a closet full of instruments,
and he kicks butt on all of them. The temptation
is to take his virtuosity for granted; records
by Spiraling are supposed to have terrific
playing by the Professor on them, right? Brislin
started from such an exalted position that
it’s easy to space on how much he’s
improved over the years. Ever since the punchy
Challeging Stage EP, his band has been pushing
him: it’s not like they’ve caught
up with the frontman, not exactly, but they’re
now good enough to engage in a musical dialogue
with him while he’s squalling away.
The liner notes to Time Travel Made Easy imply
that drummer Paul Wells isn’t a permanent
member of the band, and I’m not sure
why that is – his performances are energetic
and imaginative, and judging by his letter-perfect
Phil Collins drum break on “Victory
Kiss”, he’s down with the program.
Versatile guitarist Marty O’Kane can
chug through a straightforward rock verse
like a Drive-Thru sideman, stop on a dime,
and soar through an instrumental section like
Robert Fripp; either he’s gotten better
or his pedal-board has been given a serious
upgrade. Bassist Bob Hart does the most to
anchor Spiraling in the present radio-rock
moment – for much of Time Travel Made
Easy, he’s content to hammer out eighth-notes
on the roots of the chords. To be sure, from
time to time, he struts his stuff. But even
when he’s keeping it simple, his sound
is so rich and fat that he calls attention
to his playing without trying. It would be
unfair to call Time Travel Made Easy the first
Spiraling release that feels like a true band
album, because they’ve been a tight
and mutually-supportive unit for years; despite
his eye-catching talent, Tom Brislin has never
been a spotlight hog. But prior sets did always
feel a bit imbalanced – often the frontman’s
solos felt like they came out of nowhere,
and sometimes Brislin’s colorful synths
got buried under relatively uninteresting
six-string and bass. That never happens here.
Everything is in its place, and every participant
plays his role, just as it all unfolds on
those classic albums that the members of Spiraling
dig so much.
The songs: Time Travel Made
Easy feels a bit jazzier than prior Spiraling
releases, but that’s only really true
when Tom Brislin sits down at the piano by
himself and finds those Richard Wright chords.
Once the band crashes in, he might swerve
to avoid I-IV-V progressions, but he generally
keeps the car on the mainstream-pop highway.
“Enemy” is probably the closest
thing here to an old-fashioned prog epic:
it unfolds slowly, and meanders into semi-expressionist
intermezzos not unlike those that Tony Banks
wrote for Duke and Wind & Wuthering. But
even that song is structured according to
conventional pop logic – three verses,
each a bit fuller than the last. Instrumental
sections on Time Travel Made Easy are intended
to be punctuation, not departures. Spiraling
may have a jones for true prog, but they’re
also fans of brevity; most of these tracks
clock in at typical pop-song length. The Bigelf
album this ain’t: with the exception
of “Enemy”, none of these songs
would sound out of place on contemporary rock
radio.
What distinguishes this record from
others?: Usually, revival acts are
trendspotters and crowd-pleasers. Some old
Leonard Cohen song appears in an art movie,
and the next thing you know, every muso in
Brooklyn has dusted off his copy of I’m
Your Man and is cribbing the synth textures.
Tom Brislin, on the other hand, brings back
stuff that nobody has particularly asked for.
Eric Cartman might think that Asia is cool
(and they are), but that’s about where
it ends; nobody is making a living rewriting
“Only Time Will Tell”. To their
credit, Spiraling doesn’t care. They
like what they like, and they’re not
afraid they’ll torpedo their chances
for success by occasionally sounding like
Supertramp. You might recall that the Goo
Goo Dolls recorded a splashy version of “Give
A Little Bit” a few years ago, and that
may be all the proof you need that there’s
common ground to be found between prog-lite
and emo-pop. But if there are other bands
out there working this territory, I sure can’t
name any, and I’ll bet you can’t,
either.
What’s not so good?:
Despite a mod-wheel happy synth lick, “Choices”
isn’t quite as sharply-assembled as
the rest of this collection. It “rocks”,
though, I guess. I don’t mind it, but
it feels like a lull. Tom Brislin hasn’t
entirely shaken his proclivity for clumsy
metaphors: in “Are You Here”,
which is supposed to be a smooth-talkin’
love song, he asks “our emotional currency/
how can you be so quick to deem it valueless?”
Unless he was trying to channel Alan Greenspan
flirting with Andrea Mitchell, that one probably
should’ve been rewritten. Also, while
I don’t mind the singer’s newfound
venom, there are a few moments on Time Travel
Made Easy that feel excessive – toward
the end of “You Might Say (No Transformation
Here)”, for instance, he adopts a sneer
that’s downright unbecoming. “One
fine day”, he taunts, “you’ll
feel tired of being you/ Don’t act so
surprised/ You probably already do”.
Sung without a trace of redemptive compassion,
it makes the narrator sound more like a self-entitled
twerp than a nerd hell-bent on justifiable
revenge. Using songs like “The Future”
as supporting evidence, you might conclude
for yourself that this is Brislin unmasked:
a person who really does think that the world
owes him better than he’s gotten, and
who harbors poorly-disguised contempt for
the people around him. Now, many of you reading
this know Tom Brislin for the sweetheart he
is – one of the really good guys in
Jersey rock – and if so, you probably
hear these outbursts as momentary expressions
of righteous rage. You might even shake a
fist in solidarity. But Brislin can’t
meet every member of his audience personally:
some of his listeners are going to judge his
likability on the basis of his recordings
alone. If the uninitiated come away from Time
Travel Made Easy with an ugly impression of
the narrator, I can’t say I wouldn’t
understand how that could be.
Recommended?: So far, I’ve
probably heard about a hundred albums released
this year. I can’t say that any of them
is better than Time Travel Made Easy.
The new Spiraling album is cogent, entertaining,
well-written, and well-played; on top of that,
it sounds terrific. It’s an intelligent
record and a courageous one, too – the
band plainly craves mainstream acceptance,
but they haven’t punted on any of their
prog-rock ambitions. That said, Time Travel
Made Easy is not the sort of thing currently
lighting up the charts, or the festival circuit,
or the hipster underground. It is hard to
see fans of MGMT or Yeasayer putting aside
their distaste for the allegedly-uncool and
getting with this; likewise, the Warped Tour
crowd will doubtless find Tom Brislin’s
tone and concept inscrutable and needlessly
sophisticated. Worst of all, prog-heads accustomed
to trips to the Gates of Delirium and Baba
Yaga’s hut may call the subject matter
on Time Travel Made Easy prosaic. I won’t
lie; this is a tough sell. Whether you can
get with the latest Spiraling album will probably
depend on your tolerance level for a few of
the band’s basics: analog synthesizers,
Eighties pop-prog, Tom Brislin’s voice,
glossy production, occasional bad attitude.
Then again, you may just be the rare listener
who, above all things, likes music. If so,
rest assured that there’s nothing here
preventing you from appreciating one of Jersey’s
true originals.
Where can I get a copy/hear more?:
Although they’ve figured out how to
present prog-rock and emo-pop simultaneously,
don’t look for Spiraling in the all-ages
rooms. They save their biggest shows for the
Stone Pony, a club with a history that befits
the band’s ambitions. Unfortunately,
their website doesn’t list any upcoming
shows, so if you want to hear Time Travel
Made Easy, you’re going to have to write
away for a copy. There’s a five-song
sampler on the site that’ll give you
the picture.
YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS by Tris McCall
