As far as puns on rock icons named Brian go, Bryan Scary is as appropriate an appellation for its glam-boyant eponymous frontman as the Brian Jonestown Massacre is for that band's brand of sinister psychedelia. Butthe kind of scary that Bryan deals in is of a decidedly Rocky Horror variety: His second album, Flight of the Knife, sucks in all kinds of 1970s-- the canonic glitter-rock of Sparks and Queen, the MOR pop of Wings and ELO, and the fleet-fingered prog of Yes and early Genesis-- but its crafty construction betrays a staunch determination to make a whole decade of once-guilty pleasures feel innocent all over again.
Ironically, one definitive 70s rock act that Bryan Scary doesn't immediately bring to mind is Roxy Music-- in contrast to his namesake Ferry's debonair cool, Bryan Scary projects a gentle, childlike presence that seems forever on the verge of being overpowered by the time-signature trickery and noodly arpeggios swirling around him. But like Bob Pollard and Carl Newman before him, Scary understands that prog-rock is really just psychedelic pop with the between-song gaps removed-- and if you want people to buy into your crazy cosmic concepts, you better make sure they have something to sing along to first. The end game is not so much prog as power-pop with chops.
That Flight of the Knife's title track is broken up into two book-end tracks-- the first, a rhapsodic overture complete with jazz-funk interludes, the latter a rollicking, boogie-woogie-- implies some sort of overarching storyline (in short: the sky is high and space is the place), and the ecstatic energy with which Scary prances through character pieces like the celestial "Venus Ambassador" and the giddy, piano-pounded freak-out "Imitation of the Sky" suggests he’s already fantasizing about a crossover theatrical adaptation. But it'll be one narrative logic takes a back seat to spectacle: in just four minutes, "The Purple Rocket" alternates between head-bopping power-pop and jarring prog-jazz breaks, before settling on a "ba ba da ba ba” group chorus that sounds like a jingle for a kids' cereal commercial-- for no apparent reason other than it can.
Scary's aggressively eager showmanship and ADD-addled arrangements threaten to exhaust himself and his audience equally-- by the time we hit the plasticine pop of "Son of Stab", the song's whip-lashed change-ups feel more the product of indecision than ingenuity. So the penultimate piano ballad "Heaven on a Bird" feels all the more triumphant for its McCartneyian modesty: "It's such a fantasy," Scary admits of the titular travel plan, but if heaven is out of the question, he'll at least settle for Broadway.
