Rog & Glenn began writing and recording music together as high school students in Boone, North Carolina. Both have been involved professionally in the music industry through the years – Glenn Hubbard as a hired-gun instrumentalist in variety bands, pit orchestras, restaurants, bars, and as a freelance recording engineer-producer – Roger Brandon on the business side, formerly working in management at a large western North Carolina concert venue.
They have rarely gone more than a year or two without bouncing musical ideas off each other, but their collaboration took on a new vitality in early 2012 when a musical “guys’ weekend” yielded an unexpected cache of song ideas, most resulting from a creative approach more akin to improvisational comedy than musical composition.
The duo’s January 2013, progressive rock release, Close The Club, which we reviewed sometime in February, reminded us of the 70s golden era of rock; a time where creativity by far surpassed the formulaic approach to making music. It was also an era where musicians actually played their instruments. These instruments where usually strapped on a shoulder or held up by a two or four-legged support stand. Unlike today’s variety, that can usually be found on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
I have nothing against technology or computer-aided music and can absolutely appreciate the benefits to be had from such applications, but when it comes to any form of music even distantly connected to rock, I’m rather old school and will always prefer the classic methods as opposed to software driven sounds.
As soon as I put Rog & Glenn in my player, I hear guitars, pianos, organs and a host of other organically sounding instruments and voices, to leave me once again flabbergasted by the raw, authentic sounds they produce. They convinced me on “Close The Club” and they repeat the sensation for me on “Martians”.
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“Martians” is replete with the same level of superlative musicianship, lyricism, intelligence, class and style that’s come to characterize all Rog & Glenn’s work. There is also a familiarity that, in part, stems from allusions to the previous album.
Rog & Glenn are true masters of mixing the best of rock and pop and a dash of funk and jazz into one perfect package, and their ability to write amazing melodies, sophisticated chord changes, deep introspective lyrics, and nasty funky grooves is nothing short of supernatural.
Based on the first few days of playing this over and over, I would say the album is amazingly consistent, with only one or two songs falling short of the best tracks on here. My current favorites out of the twelve, are probably “Santa Claus Is Mr.Petrey,” “Might Nip A Little,” “Mr.Greene”, “Without Gravity”, “Sixth Man” and “No More Starr Warz”.
“Martians” is a diverse mix of intelligent, mature, always pleasing music. No one makes music like this anymore. Every song is excellent and musicianship is at its finest. Nobody comes close to the dynamic sound on this album. Two listens and you are hooked; the songs are so damn good. This is modern, yet nostalgic music, at its finest. You will not be disappointed when you buy this album. I can’t stress enough how good this music sounds.
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