Dredging up new psychedelic, concept album

Concept albums make me cringe. Bands with pretentiously misspelled names like Dredg make me wince. After listening to Dredg's El Cielo, I may need to reconsider. \nPart of the problem is that the first thing that comes to mind when the words "concept album" come up are, "Domo arrigato, Mr. Roboto." Ugh. The second thing is wailing about how dragons will take over the Earth by the year 10,000. Double ugh.\nConcept albums can force a band to focus its songwriting, though. Instead of drowning in lame, overworn lyrics, bands can get right to the point. The best of the recent ones, Grandaddy's The Sophtware Slump, did this, and Dredg succeeds as well.\nLead vocalist Gavin Hayes sings in a soaring tenor, and his theme is sleep paralysis, the temporary inability to move the body either when trying to go to sleep or when just waking up. Hayes' lyrics read like they were stolen from different therapy sessions.\nMusically, four different tracks under the "Brushstroke" heading move things along and form the psychedelic base for the different unfolding stories.\n"Convalescent" tells a weird story about seeing "creatures" amidst a skyscraping melody and a cool fake ending.\n"Eighteen People Living in Harmony" warns of a life of excess against a pretty melody without being too disgustingly sweet like your typical Coldplay or Starsailor tune. "Whoa Is Me" is epic, portentous stuff -- and perhaps the centerpiece of the album, with a disembodied DJ's voice coming in at the end. The album also shows rhythmic inventiveness by featuring some Latin percussion and syncopated beats. \nThe album's main weakness is that the songwriting gets a little smarmy in some spots and trite in others. But overall, the effect is introverted mood music designed for pensive brooders. Now that the music is validated, somebody should tell the musicians about changing the band name.