Music Reviews: I Predict A Clone
Cornerstone Magazine
Q2(?) 1994 Volume 23 Issue 104
© 1994 Jesus People USA
Page 58
Various Artists
I Predict A Clone
R.E.X. Music
When you have an artist as respected and loved as Steve Taylor, the results of letting his peers run amok with eleven of his songs are bound to at least interesting if not brilliant. Luckily one finds almost all these tracks breathing new life into the body of an artist's work that should influence many more colleagues in years to come.
The effect is a musical smorgasbord of styles and treatments. Circle of Dust was a natural to take on "Am I in Sync?" and the track throbs with an even deeper groove than before. Nothing lost in translation. And a little-known Taylor tune like "Bouquet" is even more plaintive in the hands of Sixpence None the Richer's Leigh Bingham.
Most creative honors, though, have to go to Dig Hay Zoose for their incredible medley of "Steeplechase" and "I Want to Be a Clone," a rousing seven-and-a-half-minute celebration that is gloriously out of control, roaming the gamut from metal to thrash to pop, screaming one minute and gloriously harmonious the next.
I can't finish this review without commenting on the extraordinary rendition of "Harder to Believe Than Not To" by a group called Fleming and John. Fleming McWilliams' operatic/alternative rock diva vocals are intimately woven through lush strings one minute and driving guitars the next. Her treatment of Steve Taylor's original melody for the song proves that while he may not be first and foremost a singer in the strictest sense, he is a songwriting genius and a vocal stylist par excellence. Yes, I was disappointed not to find "Jim Morrison's Grave" or "I Blew Up the Clinic," but it didn't dampen my enjoyment of this great disc!
-- D. C.
