In a world full of teenage angst with singer songwriters beating themselves up about their school yard crush and such like there was (and granted misplaced) a slight apprehension when it came to listening to the solo work of Spencer Bassett, a young lad who openly admits the recording of his EP at the tender age of 16 whilst battling with the usual dredge of GCSE’s and exams was to be somewhat of a challenge.
However given this EP (recorded under the name of Flicker Rate) is all instrumental there is little to suggest the age of it’s composer and nor should it matter if it weren’t for Spencer addressing the issue head on himself, as the self-titled “Flicker Rate” release does have a certain sense of maturity about the end result.
This could well be down to Spencer’s upbringing, for his early years would be spent listening to Bassett senior who having performed with King Bathmat released seven albums over a ten year period, which given the prog-rock tendancies on Flicker Rate has no doubt had significant impact.
Opening tune “Valhalla” and closing number “Elusive Rain” are definitely the best among the four tracks on offer, both sounding complete in their production and focus on the talented guitars and drumming of Spencer Bassett, the second of which is the more complex but both atmospheric and moody in nature.
With the complete EP only coming in at around 12 minutes in length (which for most prog-rock bands would constitute just one song!) the two middle tracks are more of an introduction to what Flicker Rate is capable of outside the realms of its roots, for “Evident” descends into a weird electronic mash up whereby my only complaint is it ended all to suddenly, whilst “Small Sun” is all about the guitar riff showing Spencer could move away from solo prog-rock to more straight forward metal if he so wished.
Although I’ve already done so it was originally my intention not to pass too many references to Spencer Bassett’s father, however there is a clear influence throughout the EP of his dad’s body of work, in particular the more recent persona of Arcade Messiah (who’s albums are reviewed elsewhere on this site) and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as whilst the face behind Flicker Rate is indeed the son of a king, give it a few years and he may well be challenging for the prog-rock throne.
