Blue Man Group - The Complex (DVD-Audio)

 

Sound: MLP 96/24: B+     DTS 96/24: B     PCM 2.0 Stereo at 48kHz/24: B-

Music: C-     Extras: C-

 

 

Blue Man Group creates unique instruments and sounds, and though I don’t enjoy seeing artists selling out to make appearances in commercials as they do, I let it slide, as I consider them more visual entertainers.  This album has some good songs on it, but there are many times where these songs are clouded when the group’s attempts at artistry come off as pretentious.  I’ve decided to give a short track-by-track commentary for this one, since most of the songs feature different collaborators.

 

Above is a standard intro, nothing to write home about.  It’s basically just a demo of the album’s primary instruments.  Time to Start is next - I really don’t get this one.  It describes the stages of movement people go through at a concert, as they get further into the music.  It’s kind of lame, and the monotone voice just makes it more annoying.  I guess it may be showing how people basically act the same and follow one another’s lead... in any case, moving on.  Sing Along is an enjoyable track and a collaboration between Blue Man Group and Dave Matthews - the DVD-Audio includes the music video for this song as an extra.  This still isn’t greatness, and it’s not something I’d find myself listening to a lot, but it’s better than many other songs found on here.  Up To The Roof is the next collaboration, this time with Tracy Bonham; this track annoys me, most likely because of the bland, simple lyrics and generic-sounding vocals.  Your Attention carries the same monotone voice also present on Time To Start, and while not as much of an annoyance as that track, this one is still pretty boring.  Persona features Josh Haden, who has a decent voice that lends itself well to the music.  The song might have been better without lyrics, instead just featuring a more free-flowing vocal over the band’s percussion.  Piano Smasher is just a pretty repetitive instrumental track that can be seen as a bridge between songs.

 

The next half of the album begins with a cover of Jefferson Airplane‘s White Rabbit, the guest vocalist being Esthero.  Her voice is at times very complimentary to what is an uneven song that has short glimmers of potential.  When it‘s not good, it really feels like she and the group are straining themselves unnecessarily to rock out.  Hearing her voice politely screaming the lyrics “remember what the dormouse said - feed your head” really left me disgusted with this track for some reason.  After this is the album’s most heard single, The Current, featuring Gavin Rossdale of Bush.  It really feels like just another Bush song, except for some audible Blue Man Group instrumentation.  Shadows Part 2 follows, featuring the album’s second collaboration with Tracy Bonham.  This is a good song, and has a nice, relaxing flow to it.  What Is Rock? is another annoyance along the path of this bumpy album and features Arone Dyer and Peter Moore; it’s just too muddled to get anything enjoyable out of it.  “The Complex” features Peter Moore from the previous track, he’s got a decent voice, but it doesn’t really stand out at all.  Again, the lyrics are pretty cliché and bland.  A cover of the Donna Summer’s Giorgio Moroder-produced classic hit I Feel Love is next, featuring Venus Hum.  I’m not familiar with the original version of this, so I can’t offer a comparison, but this one is monotonous and too simple to show any interest in.  The closing track, Exhibit 13, is another instrumental; it’s decent to relax to, since there aren’t any forced lyrics or bad vocals to muck things up.  This release also features the video to this song as an extra.

 

The sound on the album is decent, the bit depth is 24 bits across all formats, but the odd thing is that the MLP sample rate is not 192kHz, but instead only 96. The DTS also has a sample rate of 96k, the PCM with 48k.  Of course, the MLP is uncompressed and the uncompressed DTS ++ format has only just been announced for the two competing high definition disc formats due soon.  The lower kilohertz on the MLP shows that this album was recorded on some older digital equipment, but it sounds recent just the same.  Overall, the sound is not bad, if not demonstration quality.  There were some lyrics and the video screens offer facts meant to be interactive with the songs, but the extras here are scant.

 

Blue Man Group should stick to their strengths by making instrumental mood music, rather than attempting junky rock songs that don’t mesh well.  This album really wasn’t a good introduction to the DVD-Audio format for me.  I was against it from the start, as I prefer not to involve a TV screen at any time while listening to my music collection.  This format is worse than I originally pictured it - the menus are confusing, are not easy to operate on even the best DVD-Audio machines and added a great deal of frustration.  At least I had this chance to test it out, and no longer regret not picking up a permanent DVD-Audio enhanced player for my system.  I’ll just concentrate on the SACD (or SA-CD, as they are now spelling it) format player as they become mass-produced.  It seems to be the far superior of the two surround-sound music formats, and I truly hope DVD-A dies a horrible death and is left in the digital dust.  Even the case for this album was an ongoing frustration, as it’s impossible to take the booklet out without bending it.  As for this release itself, I’d avoid it on any format; it’s not worth sifting through for one or two passable-to-good tracks.

 

 

-   David Milchick