Planet P Project

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Planet P Project - 1931

Artist:	Planet P Project
Title:	1931
Label:	ProgRock Records
Length(s):	51 minutes
Year(s) of release:	2004
Month of review:	[05/2005]

Line up

Tony Carey

Tracks

1)	My Radio Talks To Me	6.41
2)	Join The Parade	4.29
3)	Good Little Soldiers	5.12
4)	Work (will Make You Free)	4.49
5)	The Judge And The Jury	5.02
6)	The Other Side Of The Mountain	5.48
7)	Waiting For The Winter	4.55
8)	Believe It	4.04
9)	The Things They Never Told Me	4.35
10)	Where Does It Go?	5.03

Summary

Planet P is the name of the project form introduced by Tony Carey during the eighties. After releasing two albums during the decade, Planet P was silent until now. This album, recorded between 1992 and 2003, is the first in a trilogy. This first album talks of the rise of the nazis in Germany in the nineteen thirties.

The music

Despite the long time since previous releases, the sound is pretty similar to the eighties releases. Most music is rather poprock oriented, somewhat akin to for instance Corey Hart. At other times, especially when the rhythm becomes more danceable we move towards the sparser tracks recorded by Enigma. None of the bombast we see from them, though. The progressive content is not that big. The music uses lots of electronics and the sort of clear, bare rhythms as we heard in the (late) eighties. Those rhythms can be irritating at times.

Most of the tracks are mid to up tempo directed, but there is the occasional slower track as well. Most of the times these are the better ones, in the sense that they lean less on instrumental means (rhythm) and somewhat more on melody and breathe more of a progressive atmosphere. Traditionally Carey's albums contain a couple of tracks that in some way irritate, or at least irritate me. This is no exception. What is unfortunate, though, is that those tracks (Work and Judge & Jury being the foremost) are in the first half of the album. Good Little Soldiers and Waiting For The Winter are the slower tracks on this album, and the clear highpoints in my opinion. Especially the latter has a pretty good climax. Believe It has a nice enough melody too, but the rhyhtm makes it almost danceable.

Carey's voice has a raw quality to it. At times it moves towards being grating (without getting there), whilst being quite effective at other moments. What you feel about his voice, though, will be mostly up to personal taste. It is a rather specific voice.

The concept of the rise (and possibly the fall in later releases of the trilogy) of the Third Reich is an interesting subject for what I guess you might call a rock opera. Unfortunately the booklet does not contain the lyrics to the tracks, nor a description of the concept. A missed chance, as far as I'm concerned.

Conclusion

I guess it must have been fifteen years since I first heard Tony Carey music. During that time neither his music nor my opinion of it have changed a great deal. This album contains a number of pretty good tracks. It also contains several pretty weak ones. The second half of the album does sound better than the first, being more melodic and less rhythmic. Like previous Carey albums this one fails to make clear to me why his music is considered (or called) progressive. Those into previous Carey work will not be disappointed with this release, which is among his better work.