Style: rock, cheese (clean vocals)
Review by: Daniel
Country: US-TN
Release date: 01-01-2019
NOTE: This album was originally included in the January 2019 issue of The Progressive Subway
If you enjoy musicals, then I would say that you probably have the greatest chance of like Joey Frevola’s Gone just because of the cheese factor in his music. Cheese isn’t always bad, it can be great sometimes, but bad music is bad, and I think even the most ardent lovers of musicals and progressive rock will be hard pressed to like all of Gone.
Altogether, Joey Frevola has done some ok things in this album, but his accomplishments are diminished by messy songwriting and blatant stealing from other artists.
I’m going to take a minute to catalogue everything I’ve heard him take:
- The main theme in Empty is pretty much directly taken from Dancing Queen.
- A sax chimes in Find Him with the theme of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
- The main theme in Elise’s Song sounds ripped off from Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky (guy who composed Night on Bald Mountain, which is featured in Fantasia).
- I swear I’ve heard the main theme in Lonely somewhere else before…
- Same thing for Lonely as for the final theme in “Friends”/main theme in Someone Like You. It sounds like it’s from a Disney movie, and I can’t really tell which one.
- I’m sure I’m missing more just because I don’t know where all he takes all of his “inspirations” from.
But the blatant stealing in this record isn’t the only sin. His music often feels chunky and awkward, with poor transitions. For example, Rooftops is a song with clear Dream Theater influences. The beginning has this random polyrhythm thing that never rears its ugly head again in the song. Other than showing that polyrhythms are a thing I don’t really know what the point of this intro is. It makes no musical sense. After this, the song gets off the ground and gets pretty ok but is then ruined by a couple of weird transitions in the end. It just feels like the music is at least a couple iterations away from being a finished product.
But it’s not just Rooftops that feels like this. Just like the music, the album feels all over the place and lacks much cohesion. But it’s not all bad for Mr. Frevola. I definitely see some sparks of genius in his music. In my opinion Lonely stands out as the best track on this album. As I mentioned previously, I swear I’ve heard the main theme in Lonely before, but that doesn’t take away from the quality of the song. It’s undeniably beautiful, and I believe that Joey Frevola has his best vocal performance on the album in it.
I’m intrigued to see what output Joey Frevola will have in the future. If he cleans up his act, I think he’s capable of making something good. For now, I would only recommend Lonely to the casual reader.
Recommended tracks: Lonely
Recommended for fans of: musicals, Disney
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page
Label: Independent
Joey Frevola is:
– Joey Frevola (all instruments)
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