"Music for People" VAST (Mushroom) review by Ruth

Hot on the heels of single 'Free' comes the second album from Visual Auditory Sensory Theatre, 'Music For People'. A grandiose claim perhaps, but then everything about VAST is, well, flippin' huge, actually. Sound big enough to fill not just stadiums but entire red rock deserts, standing on pillars of huge sandstone playing guitars... feeling any sense of déja vu yet, Lars Ulrich? It's no secret that Jon Crosby is a fan of Metallica, but this takes an even more conventional, yet melodic turn off from classic rock/metal. 'I Don't Have Anything' smacks of a more laid back Bond theme in it's grandiosity. As well as 'Free's 'intelligent' rock alternative to Sportz metal's f**k authority whining, you get classic rock, strings, entire orchestras, black butterflies flying over water, snakes morphing into flowers... They've got big ideas, big names, big concepts, big sound; but there's one drawback to VAST's stadium rock, in that to fill such a space, it's as if their music was originally scanned at 20% from the original copies (to save precious memory, of course) and then blown up and resized. There seem to be holes every now and then where it all doesn't quite stretch enough fit. Add to this tracks like 'The Gates Of Rock and Roll'; a virtual worship at the altar of rock cliché, lines like "The gates of rock and roll will never close on me" leaving you wondering if they've ever seen 'This is Spinal Tap' and taken it a little too seriously. 'Music For People' indeed. Well, at least I know what to give my Mum for Christmas, then.

3/5