Mike Visaggio

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Published on 5/13/2006

By Floyd Bledsoe of ProgressiveEars.com

Member: ffroyd (Profile) (All Album Reviews by ffroyd) Date: 4/23/2006 Format: CD (Album) I don’t know if it’s a coincidence but ever since Neal Morse released Testimony a few years back, I’ve noticed quite a few Christian musicians coming out of the woodwork. It’s not like in years past where an artist who had a religious message almost seemed obligated to present the music in a watered-down popish format. Some of these newer artists have been very bold and adventurous with the music while keeping their message intact. Mike Visaggio from Richmond, Virginia is one such artist. His latest CD shows that it is very possible to produce a nice contemporary prog Christian album without sacrificing musical integrity. Mike is an excellent keyboardist with a wonderful palette of mostly vintage sounds that he uses. This stuff sounds like it could have easily come from the mid-seventies. Maybe the fact that he has been playing since then makes it more authentic sounding. He has been in several bands in the New York City area before relocating to Virginia and has also recorded a few albums with Billy Falcon’s band Burning Rose. Starship Universe is his first solo CD and hopefully there will be many more to come. You can tell by his choice of keyboard patches that Mike has a real admiration for Keith Emerson. He also does a really nice cover of Emerson’s “Blues Variations” on here. Like I said before, there are some really nice vintage keyboard sounds that he uses. Several times while listening to this disc I had to do a double take to make sure it was really more recent music and not actually something recorded in 1978. Mike does all the vocals on the disc as well. Singing doesn’t seem to be his forte but he plods along admirably. His vocals can be a bit flat at times, well maybe I’m being too kind. They’re pancake flat! Even so, it’s his vocals and lyrics that make the project so special. I don’t think I’d have enjoyed this CD and paid attention to the details nearly as much if I hadn’t been thrown a little by the singing at first. Perhaps the main drawback here would be the electronic drums and rhythm programming. Although they are done very well, it’s obvious that it would have been preferable to have a real drummer playing a huge kit to really do these compositions justice. There is an actual drummer (Mike Murray) who appears on three tracks and these are the fullest sounding on the album. There are a few standout tracks on the CD. My favorite right now is probably “The Synchronized Life” which is one of the ones I mentioned that has real drums. Another one I like is the version of Strauss’s "Also Sprach Zarathustra" which Visaggio has playfully renamed “Also Rocked Zarathustra”. The final song “Music’s Coming To Us” seems to take on a more straightforward rock approach and would probably sound excellent with a full band. All in all, I think this is a really nice CD and I’m glad Mike took the time to send it to me. It’s great efforts like this one that are giving Christian prog a more respectable name these days. Bravo!



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ProgressiveEars.com is a website dedicated to progressive rock in all its forms. The reviewer is Floyd Bledsoe.

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