Growing up I listened to the sort of mainstream rock that can be summed up in one word: Boston. The New York Dolls, the Velvet Underground, the Ramones—never heard of them. Iggy and the Stooges—you’ve got to be kidding. But Boston? I smoked my very first joint listening to “More Than a Feeling.” In fact it’s safe to say I smoked my first ten joints to “More Than a Feeling.” I still catch a whiff of low-grade reefer when I hear the song.
It’s for this reason that Fever Dog hit me where I live. The Palm Desert, California trio sound like they spent their formative years listening to the records I loved when I was fifteen. Any band whose songs evoke the sounds of Styx, the Sweet, T. Rex, and Gary “Dream Weaver” Wright is my kind of band. Fire a bullet in their direction and I will throw myself in front of that bullet. Gladly.
Haters of 2021’s Alpha Waves will no doubt argue that populist MOR rock is no longer popular, but a thing of rock’s Pleistocene past. They will then point out–correctly–that scientists recently discovered its tusks beneath 12 feet of permafrost in the Russian Far East. But I knew elitist punks like this growing up. They’d have sooner gnawed their own ears off than be caught listening to Kansas’ Leftoverture.
Yet, those of us who thought the synthesizer intro to Steve Miller’s “Fly Like an Eagle” was the spaciest thing to come along since Atom Heart Mother. Except we didn’t know Atom Heart Mother existed. Our knowledge of Pink Floyd extended to Dark Side of the Moon, who just happen to be another one of Fever Dog’s influences.
Fever Dog have probably heard the intro to “Fly Like an Eagle,” and there’s no doubt in my mind they’ve spent time listening to Boston, Sweet, REO Speedwagon, and Styx’s “Come Sail Away.” And they’ve incorporated the whole bunch of them into a Midwestern prog-lite for people who hate Yes and England’s brand of interictally complex (and pretentious) progressive rock. You’ll find no Rick Wakeman or Keith Emerson here, just a power trio who complement their rock with organ, sound generators, and theremin. I have no idea what a sound generator is. It sounds like something you use to power your stereo. Or something you need goggles and heavy ear protectors to operate.
And Alpha Waves? It’s my favorite album of all time and will be until next week. You can have fun parsing the songs’ musical influences. The T-Rex in “Bruiser!” is a no brainer. On the title track Gary Wright meets Rick Derringer (think “Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo”) and the Sweet. “King of the Street” is Sweet with a Burudi beat, and the Sweet also play a minor role in the fast, Saturday night-ready “Freewheelin,” which in a just world would be blasting out of every stereo on the planet.
“Star Power” is 78 percent Alan Parsons Project or Pink Floyd, take your pick. I’m going with the former because if I hear Dark Side of the Moon one more time someone’s going to have to answer for it. “Hold on You” reeks of Ted Nugent’s best ever song, “Stranglehold.”
The roots of some of these songs are harder to yank out of the ground and say, “Aha!” The monster bass that opens instrumental “Mystic of Zanadu” is basically a rip off of The Fall’s “Blindness,” which makes me wonder what it’s doing here. “The Demon” is Uriah Heep by name only, while “In My Hands” is a prom-friendly ballad with an intro that could be by Boston before making a left into some lost band hiding behind a bush in MOR territory.
It’s not as if this kind of thing hasn’t been done before. In 1988 punk’s Bad Religion shocked the world by releasing the prog-lite Into the Unknown. Unfortunately everybody hated it and Bad Religion escaped being tarred and feathered by the skin of their teeth.
But Fever Dog’s timing is better; people may be more receptive to albums like Alpha Waves. What goes around comes around, and listeners may be ready for a loving salute to the Dazed and Confused generation. Let’s hope they find it here. Fever Dog deserves it. Boston and Styx deserve it. I deserve it. I’ve waited a long time for the day I can say with pride, “Boston rules.”
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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