Professor Elemental and his Amazing Friends

Image (c) Professor Elemental

"Here's a thing," a certain flame-haired lady in my life said to me. "That splendid chap, Professor Elemental is looking for respectable correspondents to review his new LP." Well, I argued that I'm more of a TV and movie reviewer, but she talked me into sending my visiting card, and the result is this review of Professor Elemental and his Amazing Friends.

As the title suggests, many of the tracks are collaborations with different artists and producers, which mixes up the sound between offerings from Elemental and primary collaborator Tom Caruana and remixes of a couple of older songs. There are also a fair few references to superheroes and comics, and the bookend tracks 'Intro' and 'Outro' present as the opening and closing of an animated series.

Despite the Professor's retro stylings and trademark steampunk nonsense ('Mechtoria', 'Put Up Your Dukes' and 'All You Can Eat' are particular standouts in the field of steampunky nonsense,) the album does have a deeper dimension, with a running theme of equality and individualism. The steampunk aesthetic presents less as the romanticising of the past than as a rejection of the stagnation and corruption of modern life, and nowhere more so than in 'Bare Witness', a sincere diatribe against a money-driven society and music industry. 'All In Together' is an anthem for the weird and wonderful, as in its own way is 'Theme Music (Extended version)', a step-climbing, fist-pumping mini-epic and my own favourite on the album.

'Theme Music' and 'Inn at the End of Time' both reference many, many other works, with the latter being a delightful trip through SF nostalgia and the former a barnstorming catalogue of comic-book name drops. '101 Questions' is mostly a bit of musing on life and word play, but also takes a few shots at the toxic right. There are also a couple of skits - 'I Had a Hat' and 'Laughing Gas' - and the short instrumental 'Sweet Sue', which are amusing oddities, although by their nature likely to have less replay value than the regular tracks. For the rest, well I've cranked through it five times for the purposes of this review, and I'm not sick of it yet.

There's also the disco-themed 'Bee Gees Ain't Got Nothin' On Me', which may just be the first falsetto-chorused disco hip hop track of the 21st century.

This isn't going to be the album to break the Professor into the mainstream, but then I rather doubt that was the intention. For Elemental fans, steampunks and the assembled ranks of weirdoes, adventure nerds and miscellaneous geeks yet to be exposed to his work, however, it's a rousing assortment of midget gems (Elemental once more resists the lure of the extended mix, overlong middle-eight or interminable drum solo, with 'All in Together' topping out at 3 minutes 40 and only that and 'More of What You Asked For' breaking 3:30) to pick you up when you're down and cheer you on when you're up.

Disclaimer: I was sent a free copy of this album in exchange for an honest review.