Review of new Tom Allen Project CD - "Deadly Dose"
By Kathy Kinman

Tom Allen Project (TAP) has done it again with the long awaited second CD, surpassing the raw expression from their first CD, Tales Of Knight....and all my hopes as well.

The new Dose of TAP starts out like a brief history of Tom Allen's musical career with a new recording of "Don't Want It", a favorite among Bastid Child fans in the mid/late 90's. A great way to start this amazing artistic effort!

Allen still loves hard rocking but he also loves musical nuance and it's obvious in the chacha-esque "So Much". This track gently teases the listener into anticipating loud blasting monotonistic riffs, but pleasantly surprises with melodic gradation as Billy Royce's solid, but not too heavy electric guitar licks and Andy Shivers lofty acoustic guitar licks cross back and forth between genres. Close your eyes and you can hear gentle Venturian influence. This is the track you don't want to miss!

"Come With Me" and "Pigeon Song" both reflect Allen's attempt to seek out the high road when faced with the darker challenges of life. And yet the deeper poetic meaning behind both of these tracks does not diminish the hard-rocking drive that TAP fans demand and TAP continues to deliver.

In the center of the CD is a memorial to Allen's deceased former girlfriend "Nathalie". This track is enough to please anyone even your Mom. And at the same time, Allen's guitar soars absolutely perfectly on this tune...that's right, I said perfectly. If you're not one for the sentimental lyrics or melodic ruminations of a ballad, just wait for the guitar solo. You won't be disappointed... my only complaint is that is was too short.
But......

It doesn't end there! TAP knew exactly what they were doing when they followed "Nathalie" with "Where Is My Heart", an instrumental which further showcases Allen's and Xavier Frey's collaborative ability. Frey's guitar playing is like a breath of fresh air. Why this guy isn't on everyone's iPod is a complete, heartbreaking mystery to me! He takes us where Clapton, Santana and even Hendrix used to before drugs, fame and fortune got the better of them. He's got a style that is clean and classy and seems to know where the listener wants to go. It's truly amazing!

It's become more clear just how far this band has evolved in the second half of the CD when the lyrical and melodic mood changes. Tim Speer and Billy Royce take the listener to a new dimension of the TAP experience, yielding an uncharacteristic quality that immediately makes the listener go - 'who is that? Roger Waters?' Nope, it's still TAP! With Floydian flavor sprinkled on top of Neil Young musings, "Hitchin'Home" brings the listener to the Badlands, echoing the cries of a Native past. Royce's vocals are uniquely soft yet raspy with a shy kind of sex appeal. While subdued and more serious, he is equally as adept as Allen at delivering raw emotion on "None The Wiser", a somewhat cynical but gentle reflection of family life.

"Feeling Strange" has got to be the strangest track on the CD, but that's not a criticism! I say this only because this track goes even further out of character for this band. But it is a pleasant surprise with rolling, thumping base and percussion, synthesizing Andy Shivers voice and lyrics into a brilliant show of diversity and flexibility.

The CD closes with a return to TAP's roots and more characteristic nuances with Allen's guttural vocals and storytelling as he recounts the experience of being involuntarily drugged and all alone in the face of death. For fans of "Temujin: Ode to Genghis Khan" the CD's title track is a welcome closing to this current expression of TAP's technical and musical evolution.

In short - Be ready for a musical ride that takes you through the latter half of the 20th century but doesn't leave you yearning for days gone by....it leaves you with a hope and belief that the music never died...it lives on in bands like the Tom Allen Project. -