SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES - Origin Vol. 1 CD

Highly recommended.

"There are dozens of ways to judge the quality of an album, the first being that you dig the sounds ... and to that end, I find that the ability of individual songs to hold up on their own is the most important for me. Once I kicked back and played the entire album, listening more as a conceptual involvement and adventure, rather than to the single songs ... and once I did that I was floored, as images of TSOOL’s unabashed homage to The Beatles, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and of course pre-Tommy, The Who flowered from my speakers.

It’s more than interesting to consider this release as a set of music, tracks linked together though the intensity of their drama, style, and their place in the history of rock and roll. Origin Vol. I exists as much in the ability to look back as it does in presenting a new vision for the future. Hence my laughter whenever I hear someone saying that The Doors, or The Beatles were yesterday, and today is all that matters ... but how can one build if one does not have a solid foundation. On the other hand, sadly too many artist have that solid foundation, but are never able to shake free of the baggage, forever finding themselves trapped in a continual tape loop. What TSOOL have done is to take all of their influences, fuse them together personally, culturally, and poetically, to create a solid piece of music that while looking backwards, frees them to move forward.

“Transcendental Suicide” is more than an indication of TSOOL’s obsession with The Who, and they create a stunning number that delivers every time. The thickly textured psychedelic “Heading For A Breakdown” is so tightly woven with Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” that it’s tough to tell where one ends and the other begins. The album goes on like this as TSOOL flip off endless nods to even more of the early masters, without forgetting the likes of Love or even The Stooges."