Dec Burke - Destroy All Monsters
"Destroy All Monsters" is the first solo album from ex-Darwin's Radio and Frost* member Dec Burke. Marketed as Prog-Rock/Pop, this is fairly light on rock and unfortunately not that progressive. Granted, it has plenty of suitably nimble-fingered parts to impress other musos, but for much of the album it sounds like a watered-down King Crimson (circa 1969) mixed with 80s synthpop and topped off with uninspired vocals.
Opener 'The Last Time' resembles The Rasmus impersonating Phil Collins, and features plenty of electronic bleeps & squeals over a bland melody that sets the precedent for the rest of the album.
Track 3, 'Signs Of Life', is a more promising prospect; Redolent of Porcupine Tree and with a Scalar-based melody that brings to mind the opening of Muse's 'Bliss', this is let down, as is the rest of the album, by the overuse/repetition of any and all interesting musical ideas to the point of making you sick of the melody rather than leaving you wanting more.
Track 4 'Sometimes' sees Burke in Rasmus territory again with a melody that recalls their track 'In The Shadows', whilst track 6, 'Open', is a tedious dirge that does nothing of any note for four & a half minutes. This is immediately followed by 'Promised', another non-entity of a song that features some retro synth tinkling and drags on for over six minutes. It sounds as if the intention may have been to serve as an album outro akin to King Crimson's 'In The Court Of The Crimson King', but just comes across as self-indulgent filler.
Penultimate track 'Small Hours' is the 'proggiest' track on the album and starts strongly with an interesting 6/8 riff, before reaching a dated power ballad-esque chorus.
Whilst there are aspects of Prog, Rock and Pop here, it's mostly dated to the point of irrelevance; The most obvious Prog elements on display here are dragged straight from the late 60s/70s so could hardly be considered 'progressive', whilst most of the Pop elements are clearly three decades old. Burke has the musical chops (handling guitar, keyboard and vocal duties), but the songs themselves verge on the Prog/Rock/Pop equivalent of muzak.