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Discipline: Unfolded Like Staircase (CD, 64:53); independent release, 1997
Strung Out Records
P.O. Box 1587
Royal Oak, MI. 48068-1587
Email:strngout@aol.com

	This is one of those types of releases that either curses or blesses. My meaning? The curse: this 
will be one tough act for Discipline to follow. In giving such of their all, their best, what can they 
pull off next without the "Well this one doesn't compare with Unfolded . . ." and the like? The 
blessing: this is tour de force progressive, intelligent, thought-provoking rock. This will be one 
of those benchmark, reference point items for a long time.
	Matthew Parmenter writes all the songs, sings, does keys, violin, sax, and orchestra chimes. 
Jon Preston Bouda is electric and acoustic guitars. Mathew Kennedy is bass and Paul Dzendzel is 
drums and percussion.
	What we have is four long pieces or musical acts each being divided into movements or 
scenes. We open with "Canto IV" superbly, forcefully launched with a determined, I've-got-
something-to-say-angst attitude. It stomps over you with that Led Zep "Kashmir" progression. At 
times I heard Traffic when Parmenter's sax slipped in. Much Kansas washed over me. 
Parmenter's vocals are compelling, strong, and you are gripped quickly. He even uses a modified 
howling late in the CD calling to mind Warren Zevon's "Werewolves Of London". It is not 
overdone in the slightest.
	Guitars are on the precision level of Crack The Sky and Wishbone Ash but expressive in the 
vein of Townsend or Brian May. A wide variety of technique is deftly employed at all times. 
Parmenter's vocal dramatics and dynamics approach Freddie "Flash" Mercury yet hover around 
that Alan Parsons Project, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination macabre tone. You can hear that 
Echolyn well-wound, watch timing and crispness coming through. When the mellotrons go 
awailing you are instantly transported into vintage  Crimson-space revelry.
	The lyrics are a disturbing, dark descent into some poor soul's miasma of confused regrets. 
Parmenter is a 20th century Dante. Angst, introspection, and fever-dreamed psycho-babble 
relentlessly pummels your brain into ashes and bones. This is troubling stuff should one bother to 
listen to the words. I quote, from "IntoThe Dream", scene 4, "How does it feel to hate what you 
are or love what you should hate? This is your fate". This is the ultimate in the tortured artist 
rantings and ravings. Bass, drums, guitar, keys, and words are the wind, the flood, the firestorm 
that push the listener along. Parmenter has peered into the Cosmic Egg's Crack. What he relates 
is far from pleasant.
	Herein resides epic prog rock, full of passion and pain. Unfolded Like Staircase is a dark 
monolith casting a very long, imposing shadow across the barren wastes of this thing we call 
reality. Somberly recommended.  -- John W. Patterson



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"Canto IV (Limbo)" excerpt



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