Curious Quail ‘After The Lights Failed’ – Music Review

20141004_1000Now I get it – I had heard the term ‘orchestral rock’ before. Once. Or twice. Now I really get it. It’s that feeling what while listening to a rock tune that you envision yourself running upside a hill, emotions bursting at their cumbersome seams. It’s the audio equivalent of riding your bike gloriously fast down the block at the day’s end to make your curfew.

There’s something in the opening track, “After The Lights Failed,” that moved me to that place where strings and orchestral movements carried me to another emotion. The song’s bridge is quick (the song itself is only 1:50), but what an awakening!

The San Jose’s five-piece rock outfit, Curious Quail, delivers rewarding audio project in the 10-track album. At times the songs skate alongside indie tracks that  made me as a listener wish I was quicker at keeping up with introspective prose and allegorical soliloquies. I did love re-listening and re-discovering new questions and answers.

In “Braid” there’s a haunting violin that hovers above like a watchful raven in a Poe short story. It’s as if the electric guitar is an afterthought, but makes its appearance at all the right times.

“Heavy Rain” has a effortlessly-cool electronic key (almost like a video game when you press ‘enter’) opening. Vocalist Mike Shirley Donnelly’s voice is deep, enigmatic and reveals a slight pain in delivering. What is he sad about? He’s like a whole other character in this track, as in others, that as a listener I felt myself drawn to his seductive voice.

Overall, Curious Quail’s After The Lights Failed is a myriad of touching sounds, emotional deliveries and welcomed lyrics. It’s also draining – emotionally I felt very warn. After listening to the tracks I felt vindicated and satisfied with the way the tracks played out a story and encapsulated such broad orchestrations. Bravo – easily this album gets high marks.

Author: Melissa Kucirek