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Review:
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Here we have a brand new young British rock band who
present a reviewing challenge that favours only the bravest
of scribes. How do I describe this without myself and the
band sounding barking mad? The band certainly isn't, but,
mind you, I can't vouch for myself. Everything gets thrown
into their mixer, rock, prog, pop, metal, jazz, blues, soul,
funk, hip-hop, trip-hop, vaudeville, opera, classical, stage
musical, the kitchen sink and the washing-up. Added to that
leading lady Rachel Lowe has a voice that is somewhere between
Kate Bush, Sarah Brightman and Elaine Paige giving a rock
opera vibe to the music, heightened by Rachel’s penchant
for wearing ornate Venetian masks and the band for sporting
hoods that make them look like Kryten in Red Dwarf, they
are a very entertaining live band. The results amazingly
enough are by no means weird, but they most certainly are
wonderful, and even more incredibly, it somehow all fits
together. At this point I normally say this song sounds
like so and so, that one like thingy, but to be brutally
honest, I'm rather stumped. Their own CD Baby entry is no
help, suggesting Nightwish, Dream Theater and Kate Bush,
well I can see the Kate Bush, but they are not as heavy
as Nightwish or as technical as Dream Theater, I would propose
Muse, Queen, Alicia Keys, Carol King, Wings, Tarja, Cold
Play and Andrew Lloyd Webber as safer bets. The key musical
ingredient is Rachel's amazing piano playing which propels
the music in all sorts of directions and well as the glue
that holds it all together. This all makes for a ripping
listening experience, very accessible, melodic, hook laden
and catchy, but full of unexpected twists and turns. In
the immortal words of Commander Samuel Shaw (Stingray),
“anything can happen in the next half hour” (queue drums),
or in Milo's case, 50 minutes. Every song if packed with
enough cracking tunes to keep most bands going a lifetime,
so I will say every song is a fave, but if I had to pick
one to play on the radio, I would decide on 'Decider', being
decisive for a moment, with it's decisively unique hook
(live video on Female Voices blog). To sum up, Milo Cho
sound like Milo Cho, and they have produced an unique album
that will appeal to anyone who likes quirky catchy classic
rock. Available from CD Baby, and their Facebook is http://www.facebook.com/milochoband#!/milochoband
, a decisive 8.75 out of 10.
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