You’re reading this blog, so you almost certainly get immense pleasure out of playing music for someone and having them stroke your music-snob knob like only the most skilled of hands by asking, “Who’s this?” At this point, you get to drop on them some new knowledge, making your ego just a little bit more inflated and their music collection that much more acceptable in your eyes.  Remember, this is about you.  The fact that they get to listen to music they like? Peripheral.  But I guess it’s pretty cool, too.

From metal-addicted friends to my mid-fifties mother, I’ve been asked about RPWL by all sorts of different folks with wide-ranging backgrounds.  They have all loved the band and not a single one had heard of it before.  That’s what we in the music-snob business call pure, unadulterated self-esteem.

Clearly, we the music snobs bestow upon people true Enlightenment (with a capital “E”) when it comes to music.  You’re just fortunate that I’m letting you in on this particular secret.  You are licensed to use it for the same ego-stroking purposes.  You’re welcome.

“Oh, a band that nobody’s heard of, eh? How’s their recording quality? Are they just noise music? Do I have to be high to hear them? Is it just some dude with a guitar who thinks he’s a poet?”

None of the above!  In fact, quite the contrary.

Munich, Germany is the town RPWL calls home.  The name of the band comes from the last names of the four members: Chris Postl, Phil Paul Rissettio, Yogi Lang, and Karlheinz Wallner.

As far as their sound goes, RPWL started as a Pink Floyd cover band, and it’s quite evident in their style, though they’ve definitely developed a feeling to the ear very much their own.  Progressive to the point that Tea Partiers would have to hate them out of principle would be a good way to decribe RPWL’s sound.

They’ve released three albums, all of which are certainly enjoyable, but World Through My Eyes, their most recent disc, is an evocative and soul-pleasing audio journey that will leave you feeling oddly placid at the end.

Starting with the track Sleep, a song with a pseudo-bhangra feel and overt references to Hindu gods, the opening number slyly guides you into opening your mind and soul to what the rest of World Through My Eyes has in store.  Though the lyrical content is likely to strike you bizarre when you start listening (as it did me), by the end of the song you’re sucked in and you just don’t care any more.  This song triggers your suspension of disbelief and sets you up for the rest of the album in a great way.

Each track is a highlight, to be sure.  There isn’t a bad one on the album, which is nearly impossible in the eyes of this pretentious music snob (though to be perfectly honest, I do usually skip Sea-Nature).  However, the others that truly set themselves apart are Roses and World Through My Eyes.

Roses is the song you play for someone if you want them to be interested in the band immediately.  It is probably the least “different” of their songs, but it is so thoroughly catchy that you can’t help but love it.  And it is just original enough that you don’t have to hate yourself for it.  It is the song that makes me the most confused that RPWL has not yet taken off in the US market because its mass appeal is incredible, but it is still a beautiful and creative song.  Maybe that’s precisely WHY it doesn’t do well in the US market, because we don’t even remember how to appreciate something like that.

After you’ve used Roses as the proverbial dinner, movie, and flowers, make sure you bought an extra-large box of rubbers to what you’re going to do to your new RPWL fan with World Through My Eyes.

The title track is one of my favorite kinds of songs.  There are only a few bands who have managed this sort of track successfully (Tool’s Third Eye comes to mind), but this over-ten-minute multi-movement musical tour of your mind takes you on a goosebump-factory of a ride.  Trippy and natural at the same time, with guitar work that screams “Pink Floyd cover band” blended with tom-heavy drums that evoke a sense of Blue Man Group (of all things) and synth riffs and effects that I have never heard the likes of anywhere else (and probably never will), this song is one of those rare pleasures that never gets tired.  The Marquis de Sade would have done well to listen to this band.

My adage when listening to any band is that they must make me feel.  AC/DC doesn’t make me feel.  The Ramones don’t make me feel.  Lady Gaga doesn’t make me feel.  Hell, a lot of your dumb hipster bands don’t make me feel either.  RPWL makes me want to tear up, gives me goosebumps, the empty feeling of loss, and the feeling of peace that only catharsis can give you, all in the space of ten tracks.  That’s a mark of a good band.

The good: Do I have to tell you again? Unique sound, but not so peculiar you can’t listen to it.  Emotionally evocative to an extreme, and not in the Something Corporate sense.  Full.

The bad: The ONE thing I can think of that’s a little off-putting is that Yogi’s English is great, but once in a while he definitely has the hilarious “I’m Arnold the Governator” German accent.  But you’ll get over it.  I did.

The ugly: I just gave a potential bump in popularity to a band whose extreme obscurity is a sense of pleasure.  Please be careful with this one and preserve the exclusivity.  Thank you for your discretion.

[tube]http://www.youtube.com/v/4ip3wtj15Kk?fs=1&hl=en_US[/tube]