Rick Ray - Clone Man

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Artist:	Rick Ray
Title:	Clone Man
Label:	Neurosis Records
Length(s):	69 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1999
Month of review:	07/2000

Line up

Rick Ray - guitars, bass, percussion, vocals, guitar synth, rx8
Rick Schultz - clarinet
Jack Ambrose - vocals
John Cek - vocals

Tracks

1)	Are We Ready	4.18
2)	Scream	7.31
3)	Almost Beyond Repair	5.45
4)	The Exterminator	4.52
5)	Sands Of Time	4.45
6)	My Chair	4.11
7)	Front Seat In Hell	4.00
8)	Tell Me Where	4.52
9)	Clone Man	4.54
10)	Divided We Fall	7.29
11)	Can't Escape	4.27
12)	The Chase, The Race, The Place	3.36
13)	The Fire And The Flame	4.06
14)	The Fictitious Man	4.16

Summary

Yep, another Rick Ray album, but this time with some of his friends on vocals.

The music

Are We Ready opens the album. An mid-tempo piece with noisy guitar and either Ambrose or Cek on the vocals. The vocals of this person is smoother than those of Ray. Of course the guitar playing of Ray does figure strongly on this track which is dominated by his meandering playing. As to the melody and the structure, well they do seem familiar from Ray's other discs. The production seems a bit better than on most of Ray's other discs, but it is still not very good. For this kind of music I guess it suffices. We continue with Scream, but now with much fewer vocals. This is best compared to underground rock of the seventies but with a nineties sound. Quite a lot of variation rhythm wise. Only after a minute or four do we get some vocals on this one and the character of the music becomes more plodding. This is something else again. The guitarwork after the vocals are a noisy kind of rock 'n' roll played slower. At the very end the music goes wild. Almost Byond Repair features the slightly warped vocals of Ray. These vocals sound a bit constricted. The song is more melodic than the previous ones and for some reason it sounds even a bit optimistic. The verses have harmony vocals which aren't too great, but the melodic guitar here does well. The Extermninator is the first track featuring the clarinet of Rick Schultz, a steady co-conspirator on Ray's albums. He tends to play his clarinet as others play a jamming solo on guitar. Sands Of Time is a melancholy ballad with sparse moody guitarplaying, not something I'm used to hearing from Ray. A bit of a hazy track, not in the least because of the hazy vocals of Ray. My Chair has the typical vocal melodies of Ray, but this time the singer is one of the other guys. I prefer these vocals, they are clearer and stronger. The guitarwork continues to exist of long eerie notes. The guitar is nicely moody and bluesy, the drum computer is taking it a bit too easy. Front Seat In Hell continues the line, but the guitarwork is now again in the style of the first few tracks: long meandering solo's with plenty of notes. Again some nice melodies in here and the music has an intertwined character and also some variation in both melody and rhythm. After Tell Me Where, a somewhat mellow acoustic dominated track sung by Ray (double vocals), we come to the title track. This a jumpy piece with varied vocals, a bit unrestful because of this. The middle part is again mid-tempo with high pitched thrilly guitar. Not iinteresting. Divided We Fall has more melody in the vocal parts and is one of the longer pieces on the album. The acoustic accompaniment dominates here. In the instrumental parts the electric guitar takes the fore, but only for a while. The lyrics are political. A subject often in Rays lyrics are conspiracy plans and others taking over and this has something to do with that as well. The guitar solo is fast paced, but as often happens, the pace of the music doesn't really go up in the rhythm section. A nice melodic solo though. Can't Escape is a rocking piece with pyrotechnics on guitar. This is something Ray can and will do, he does seem to do it a bit less on this record though. It wouldn't hurt to a have a more groovy rhythm section though. At the end the pace goes down, but then something threatening creeps into the music. The Chase, The Race, The Place is not well-recorded, the sound tends to change along the way. For the rest: only guitar. Ah, the clarinet returns in The Fire And The Flame. It plays a meandering tune sounding quite unstructured. The final one The Fictitious Man, adds little to what we have already heard, although the clarinet work tends to be more melodic here.

I like the drawing of Ray on the back more than the Clone Man on the front. Would fit the album quite well I think. The one on the front is harder to take seriously.

Conclusion

I think I like this album more than most of the other Ray albums. The sound seems a bit better and the variety in vocals tend to do the music good. Also, the playing tends to the atmospheric at times and does not continue to be a monotonous mid-tempo. Also melodywise it seems a bit more varied. The vocal melodies, even if sung by the others, are typical for Ray's music, there's something "talking" about them.