Floater-Angels in the Flesh & the Devil in the Bone (1998)

(Concept by Floater; Graphic Manip. by Paul Anders; Manip/Layout by Rabid Rabit Graphics)

The eye imagery surrounding this American progressive rock group (including the eye on the album cover here) leads me to believe that they are named for the squiggly little shapes you get in your field of vision from deposits in your vitreous humour. It's also an apt description of how their albums play--allowing the listener to float between various liminal and transitory states (am I a fly on the wall in someone's dream? Is the narrator on a plane somewhere between life and death?) It's almost like a musical version of that hypnotic and unsettling diner scene in David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" in which a man recounts a disturbing dream to his companion...and then it starts to seep into reality (or is it reality?)... I will refrain from posting spoilers (look it up on youtube). The whole scene plays like a dream in and of itself...and then you get the "dream within the dream"-and it's all very captivating and unnerving and artfully done and blah blah blah you get the idea.

Floater are, like many of their influences (Pink Floyd being a huge one I would think) interested not only in evoking transitory states, but exploring artifice (particularly cinematic artifice-see "American Cinema") and idolatry (just look at the title of this one and you'll get the idea) as well. From what I can gather based on my listens, it seems to be a loose concept album based on a Christ-like figure (or one with delusions of godliness) experiencing a real or imagined death and rebirth (Wikipedia seems to confirm this). I will note, however, that nothing about the concept is on-the-nose or lazy. Skillful writing ensures that the songs retain a sense of mystique-even a sense of the cabalistic; so repeat listens are welcomed. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this may have been the kind of dark magic King Crimson were trying to capture during their 90's/ early 2000's comeback.

Floater seem to get lumped into the alt-metal file from time to time (their earlier albums, like 1994's "Sink" certainly have a harder edge), but that was never a comfortable label. Later albums, like 2004's "Acoustics" had a bit of a latter day Pink Floyd sound (particularly Gilmour's Floyd); maybe even a bit of Alan Parsons at his darkest. "Angels..." is at the mid-point of this transition.     

Endless II:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYhqWYPZfBw
Medicine Woman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wItJpumMoAA

(Labels read: "Typhon" and "Distributed by Elemental Records")