Epigene - A Wall Street Odyssey

It’s been a while since this reviewer has been so divided in an opinion on a record. It’s rare when a release can be so promising and be so downright awful at the same time, and Epigene’s A Wall Street Odyssey is one such release. The album is a twenty-two track concept album detailing the rise, fall, and ‘second coming’ of the Wall Street Trader, Yossarian.

Across the album’s two CDs we follow Yossarian from the heights of Wall Street, through his mental and emotional breakdown, his drug use, his exodus to the country, his rehabilitation in the ‘Settlement of Love’ and his return to the city as an enlightened hippy to warn society about the impending economic disaster and an inevitable imposition of an oppressive police state.

The music that this saga is hung upon is a mixture of electro and prog. It’s not particularly innovative but it’s tight and suits singer Sean Bigler’s vocal very nicely. Bigler’s vocal itself is for the most part fast-paced and it works for him. There aren’t any big soaring vocals here and the tracks are better off for it. There are a few cheesy vocoder parts in places but in general the music is interesting and cool in a very retro sort of way.

My issue here is not with the music but with the subject matter. There are themes in music that are as old as music itself, themes that are universal, such as Love. Bob Dylan sang about being scorned by a lover and put it in a unique way despite the fact that hundreds of people had sang about the same thing before.

Then there are themes that are less universal and intersect with a specific places and time. An example in our time is the current world economic recession. Subjects like this tend to be discussed so much by the media and by the average person on the street that they very quickly become types of clichés. So the unfortunate reality in this case is that Epigene have worked very hard on a piece of work that the second it was released became dated, clichéd and irrelevant.

That’s not to say that there isn’t potential in the subject, after all the fall and redemption of a man is one of the oldest subjects know to man. But here it’s not being put across in a nice way. The lyrics are so immediate, ‘I woke up at 3 a.m. and brushed my teeth’ sort of immediate, that they are almost cringeful. This reviewer also feels that the band could have left out the new age hippy preaching that pervades the work from track eight onwards.

If Epigene’s back catalogue (which consists of a number of full length albums) keeps the musical style and drops the poorly relayed concept lyricism there would be some serious potential in their work, which is why this reviewer is so torn on ‘A Wall Street Odyssey’. But as it stands this is one album that I would steer clear of.

Drop-d Rating: 4/10

Published on Drop-D.ie, 9th August, 2011