When I first listened to this (2016) album I heard shades of, Procol Harum, Elton John, The Who, early Pink Floyd, and other classic and Prog rock influences. It was like I was listening to an album from the late ’60s or early ’70s that I’d never heard before. But I’m not the same person I was back in those days, so while I didn’t find anything wrong with the album, I also didn’t fall in love with it. But I did gravitate towards it. Over the following month, I played the free download a few more times, and each time I was drawn to listen more closely to the music until eventually I did grow towards loving it and I decided I wanted to buy the album on vinyl and give something back to the artist, and hopefully hear more of the musical detail during playback. The vinyl ships from the UK, so it will be a while before I find out if my hopes will be fulfilled. The album is also available on CD or in a CD-quality download.
Londoner, Mike Weston, grew up with a virtuoso father who played every conceivable musical instrument. Apparently, Mike didn’t fall far from the tree as he writes the music and plays all of the instruments under the guise of “Adult Cinema”. There’s a lengthy biography on the This Is Cinema website that also mentions an influential neighbor who helped feed Mike’s musical database by lending him box sets of Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. I use the term, database because, before reading the bio, I had the thought that perhaps this album was the product of a computer-generated reconstruct of classic rock music. Well, it is if you assign Mike’s brain the role of the computer. Mike Weston has decoded and rebuilt the musical influences of his youth into something new that retains the time essence of the original music.
The free download is, as I recall, an Mp3 44.1 kHz, 320 bps, with a dynamic range of ~9, so it doesn’t sound bad when I play it back through Roon in my system. But don’t let the fact that this is a free album convince you that this album is not worth your time to check it out. You will be rewarded with repeated listening!