Imperial F.F.R.R. (reissue)

This album truly does "beggar the imagination" -- you think, with each new track, with each 90° turn they make: "they aren't really going to GO there, are they?" -- but they do!

Only two songs ("Suki" & "Cherry Cream On") sound remotely alike. "Isabel" is a lovely, two-minute+ acoustic number that is unlike those two -- and unlike anything else on the album -- but is catchier, more uplifting, & inspiring than most "little ditties" of that length you'll come across elsewhere.

The title track manages to extend/reward one's "attention span" in a way that lesser artists can err at by making self-indulgence the keynote rather than ... what? "Melody"? "Narrative," even? "Imperial" begs these questions, as does the album as a whole.

Sonically, the production achievement-level is sort of ridiculous: every instrument sounds so crisp & clear, it would appear no note was struck without consideration of how it would land in the listener's ear (a simulation prioritization not seen the the heydays of Jimmy Page!). Somehow the guitars sound like they're being played right NEAR you ... not just in a "life performance" sort-of-way, and NOT with those annoying "squeaks" of hands shifting up the fretboard ... but with a sort of precision that, one imagines, Isabel Bishop brought to her paintings: painstaking & yet constantly in motion, never one nor the other.

WARNING: If you drive with this in your car stereo, you'll think you'll have to pull over. (I've done this! Other listeners may very well had the same experience, and know what I mean!)