Great Civilizations Reviews - Collected Here

I'll try and grab as many as I can, as they trickle in; hit up the comments if you see one I miss.

Cheers.

...Great Civilizations is rich with drum rolls that grab your attention, convicted guitar melodies and heart-felt lyrics. The whole album is an acclamation, a moving anthem. The tracks are arranged in a way that controls the mood; one song leading up to a frenzy the next turning the mood to a more reflective tone... >The Owl Magazine

...Chamberlin isn't able to play drums like it's 1995 (as he told this reviewer last Monday) but you'd be hard-pressed to convince listeners otherwise on album highlight "Capsized Jacknifed Crisis." His ridiculously fast but smooth stick work, and the pop rock behind this well-produced piece of work are pleasurable to listen to every time.... By the time you get through these 10 tracks, if you're like this writer, you'll appreciate and dig Chamberlin's new direction more than you thought you would and will definitely want to hear a follow-up to Great Civilizations, one of the more impressive debut records of 2011   >BlogCritics 

Skysaw’s debut album Great Civilizations is a tour of prog, arena, and quiet keyboard rock.  Pirog’s guitar hooks are fast and relentless; Chamberlin’s drums are tight and martial.  [Great Civilizations] reaches for the booming symphonies of Rush's Fly By Night or Moving Pictures. But only a handful of its 10 songs achieve those heights... One wishes Skysaw had included “Cathedral”, a seven-minute spectacle of shredded fury and ricocheting drum crashes the band has been playing at recent shows and one that could make Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart envious. > Washington City Paper

...in this ten song set that proves immensely listenable from start to finish and actually scales higher peaks as it works its way forward...Great Civilizations does occasionally bow to its handle with some sweeping sentiment. Indeed, songs such as the effusive "No One Can Tell," a soaring "Nothing's Ever Easy," and the ever-insistent title track diminish any cause to quibble about Chamberlin's intent...Great Civilizations excels on its own merits, a damn fine debut due the kudos the press is bound to toss its way. > BLURT

...Skysaw struts through modern rock with the kind of confidence you'd expect from a musician as sharp as Chamberlin (the song "Capsized Jacknifed Crisis" evokes its title primarily because of Chamberlin's superbly wrecked drums), and there's a wonderful '60s delirium along the music's edges -- backwards guitars (guitarist Anthony Pirog) and woozy bass wobbles and MGMT-worthy psychedelic voices (vocalist Mike Reina). > Chicago Sun Times []

Skysaw seems to be great prog simply because they do not try so hard to be great prog. Instead, they walk that fine line between complexity and accessibility, pooling their impressive musicanship to craft melodic riffs and textures that have the momentum of a roller coaster. As a result, Great Civilizations is accessible enough to be worth checking out, and deep enough to be rewarding in the long term From the Pharmacy of Dr. Spin

Skysaw Stream Album on Eve of Record Release

Here

Interview with Jimmy Chamberlin

Chamberlin talks Song-writing, Skysaw and Smashing Pumpkins

Over at "The Swerve Magazine", apportioned here;

TS: How is the collaborative process with Skysaw different than with the Pumpkins?

JC: With Smashing Pumpkins we were primarily working on the work of one writer and the rest of the band was in charge of arranging the material. With Skysaw everyone kind of writes. Everybody brings songs in and we all work on each other's songs. It's really more of a band situation. More of a collaborative effort insomuch that everybody; myself, Mike Reina and Anthony Pirog, are all songwriters. With the Pumpkins, it really got to the point where Billy was writing so much material that that's all we really worked on.

TS: You wrote a lot of the music, and then brought Mike in the handle most of the lyrics, is that right?

JC: Mike wrote all the lyrics on the record, and that's not to say that there's not lyrics that I've written for the songs that I wrote, because some of the songs on the Skysaw record have alternative lyrics. I have always felt as a musician and a song writer that, unless it's a cover, if it's a song that Mike's going to work on, I feel he should have an investment in the lyrics and what the lyrics are saying. Obviously, for me to tell him, "Here's the lyrics, I want you to sing about this uncomfortable experience" . . . I didn't want to do that to anybody [...]

TS: After working with Smashing Pumpkins where Billy Corgan is the frontman in the spotlight, what is it like to shift into more of a leadership position?

JC: [...] I feel like being in the Pumpkins was a harder job than being in Skysaw just because I had 20 years of legacy to uphold all the time, and I felt like I had to be a certain kind of person to be in that band.  That necessarily wasn't the person I had become as an individual. With Skysaw it really gives me free reign to be myself and not have to deal with any preconceived notions of what the people in Skysaw are like. Being in the Pumpkins, you are a Pumpkin, so to speak. You go to work. You put that hat on, and you become that person. With this, it's a lot more open and I feel it's more representative of how I feel day-to-day.

TS: What was your inspiration in writing the Skysaw album?

JC: It's just asking yourself, "What does my life sound like now?" If I don't want to be in this situation, and I want to create something new what does that new situation sound like? And I think once you go down into your studio and pick up a guitar, you start to figure out, "Okay, this is what it sounds like. Now I can expand on this and kind of take it to the next level."

I found myself with a bunch of songs and needed and outlet with which to purge myself of those songs, and that was really Skysaw.  I go through cycles. When I write a bunch of pop songs I have to find somewhere to jettison them so that I can move onto the next thing. The same thing with the Complex. I found myself being drawn to a lot of early 70s prog/jazz fusion, and in writing that stuff it was necessary to find a vehicle in which to jettison that stuff.

Anyway, go and read the whole thing - tis worth it.

JBTV Taping SKYSAW Live - WIN TICKETS

http://jbtv.dostuff.info/event/458316

Event Details
50 random people (plus a guest) who RSVP will be chosen as winners and
will be notified via email within 48 hours of the event with all the
pertinent details. Tapings are in the River North area of Chicago and
all guests must be 18 years or older, or accompanied by an adult.

Happy Birthday Jimmy Chamberlin