DW, listened to the JP Steele demo....nice work there my friend! Simple, not so much- the bass lines had some interesting stuff going on, rather than just outlining the fundamental notes. You did play them precisely, but they aren't dull and bland for sure.
He did a nice job of writing the basslines.

The vocals, however...

I know we have done a little bit of "panning" with Modern Art. But I can seriously say I could listen to "Age of Reason" about 20 times in a row and not get tired of it. The chorus and bridge are great.

It's an interesting juxtaposition - the expectations of long time fans and the impact that 15 years of smoothing out has had on the music and the artists who play it. The listener reviews on the retail sites and blogs waver between disappointment and enjoyment but what seems to be missing is the state of excitement that comes when you have just heard a song that lights you up and makes you want to hit repeat for hours on end. True, there isn't anything here that buzzes me like "Dreams of the Sirens" from Kilimanjaro or that rush I still get when I hear Carl Anderson shout on "Tourist in Paradise." But songs like that are rarities across the board. If a band gets 10 during their career that's an amazing feat. This band has.

You can't ask an artist to go back and do something they did before. If they did try to do that, it would sound forced and inauthentic. The artists with staying power move forward and keep trying new things. These new things don't have to be ultra-progressive or risky if that is not where the artist is coming from when they write songs for a specific album. It's doubtful that any song on Modern Art will bring the same set of goosebumps that that the first notes of "Moonlighting" brought the first time I put the needle on the record (yeah, I got it on vinyl first), because the newness factor is not in effect. This is a band that a lot of us have lived with for over 20 years.

That being said, those first chords in the title track made me grin and the chorus is downright joyous, and the guitar line in "Pastels on Canvas" got stuck in my head for several days. Modern Art is Rippingtons music circa 2009. It's where Russ and the band are at this particular point in time and one of the reasons it feels so good is there is not a single song on here that sounds forced, contrived, or like anyone is out to prove something. These are tight, short, melodic songs that give the musicians a lot of room to breathe and take some fascinating twists and turns along the way.