Band:	Lucid Dream
Album:	Visions From Cosmos 11
Style:	Adult Oriented rock
Release date:	2011

01. Holy Rage
02. Cosmos 11
03. Fallin'
04. In The Moment
05. Night Feel
06. Get Up
07. Underground
08. Sun And Sun
09. Through The Years

If you've ever wondered what it would be like if Joe Satriani and Geddy Lee jammed up an album together, The Lucid Dream have too. Visions From Cosmos 11 is their first full-length attempt at bringing that strangely dark, not-entirely-heterosexual fantasy to light. It's not just full of hero worship, it fucking is hero-worship, and remorselessly so.

And, yeah, it's a surprise that this isn't terrible.

Thing is, where lots of bands fuck imitation up?when they borrow styles and tunes etc. from their favorite bands willy-nilly and do so without the intention of being unique?Lucid succeeds.

More or less, at least. They're definitely the sort of band that, when brought up, make it so certain big and old bands pretty much have to be mentioned too. Pretty sure that a convincing argument could be made that Visions is, essentially, a composite recording of abridged versions of Rush's early albums, Zeppelin's first two LPs, and Surfing With The Alien, for example.

But it's also more than that. Slightly, at least. The guitarist, a former member of a Satriani cover band, shreds out Satriani-esque tunes skillfully, using a similar guitar tone to the one that dominates Surfing. But, crunching his riffs up slightly more than Satriani, and throwing in some more NWOBHM-inspired riffs to the mix, he's tweaked the formula. He's taken Satriani's sound, got real Daniel Day Lewis, method acting serious with it, gotten lost in it, and has emerged from it with a style that's unique enough. He's definitely an imitator first and foremost, but he's one who adds enough of his own little flourishes to prevent his riffs and solos from ever seeming too stale.

When it comes to the Rush-influence on this, it mostly cuts in via the vocals. It's easy to get the impression that Lucid's vocalist is bent on taking Geddy's style and turning all its knobs up. The guy has a pretty enormous range. His highs, in particular, are something; pretty sure they'll send your dog into a floor-scratching, knocking shit over fit, and make nearby raccoons stop digging through your car (the back, passenger-side window won't fucking roll up) and look concernedly toward the source of the sound if you play this. Admittedly, the amount of Geddy-influence audible in his performance isn't totally comparable to what the guitarist does with Satriani, but it's slightly more than just noticeable. Biggest difference is that more than one influence can be heard in his performance. There's definitely an amount of power metal in it too.

But, to end this already. By the time the disc stops spinning, you're definitely not going to have found anything that even resembles innovativeness in Visions. But with all of the catchy tunes, the vocalist's insane range, and the fact Lucid knows how to jam the fuck out (hiccups on this are really rare), this makes for a good rock album to throw on when you want some easy listening to sit down and knock a Thunderhead or four back to.