Raze The Maze - Letters From The Parking Lot

With their second album as Raze The Maze, former MoeTar musical part­ners Moorea Dickason and Tarik Ragab raise their game on all fronts. 7am Dream squeezes 10 songs into 31 minutes. The duo plant their feet in pro­gress­ive pop land; the mood is upbeat, the sound is snappy, yet the catchy hooks are car­ried on odd time sig­na­tures. The pro­duc­tion is a notice­able advance­ment from their self-titled 2019 release, feel­ing warmer and more cohes­ive, with rich multi-layered har­mon­ies. Dickason’s vocal scoops in the title track and By Design recall the style of Kate Bush or XTC’s Andy Part­ridge, while Let­ters From The Park­ing Lot spits out frantic gui­tar licks that sug­gest the influ­ence of Zappa. Per­sist­ence is all tum­bling melodic runs, played by Paul Han­son on bas­soon, and stut­ter­ing syn­co­pated beats from drum­mer Terry Branam that inter­twine to cre­ate a poly­rhythmic puzzle. It’s densely packed stuff, where there’s always a lot hap­pen­ing in the arrange­ments even when Ragab’s melod­ies could fit in a pop song. The brisk run­ning time is decept­ive: 7am Dream is full to the brim with ideas to tickle the cerebrum.  From: https://www.pressreader.com/uk/prog/20221125/283107073013057?srsltid=AfmBOooCpWoWfV1wR00asZlUzbOcQvkhHKr3DuN1WqcpRPfm6ndSHlbe