Label: Inside Out
Review by Tony Cannella
Lonely Robot is the progressive rock project featuring John Mitchell. On the new album “Please Come Home” John Mitchell presents an album with a Marillion meets Peter Gabriel vibe. A number of special guests are enlisted helping to make this a strong record.
Make no mistake about it, Lonely Robot is good old fashioned progressive rock. In addition to vocals, John Mitchell also contributes on guitar, bass and keyboards. Some of the guests who can be found here include: Kim Seviour from Touchstone, Heather Findlay (former Mostly Autumn), Steve Hogarth from Marillion and Nik Kershaw among others. It’s a great cast of talent, no doubt about it. Does that translate to a great album? If it’s not great, it’s certainly very good. The songs – in prog rock fashion – are complex but also straddles the line to a more accessible, commercially viable sound. Some of biggest tracks for me were: “The Boy in the Radio” (which would make an excellent single, in my opinion), “Why Do We Stay”, “Lonely Robot” and “Humans Being”.
“Please Come Home” is an album that is sure to please fans of old school prog rock. You simply don’t hear bands like Lonely Robot these days and that is a shame. This album should fill in that void nicely.
Rating – 80/100
Tracklist
- Airlock
- God vs Man
- The Boy in the Radio
- Why Do We Stay?
- Lonely Robot
- A Godless Sea
- Oubliette
- Construct/Obstruct
- Are We Copies?
- Humans Being
- The Red Balloon
Line Up
- John Mitchell – Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Keyboards
- Nick Beggs – Additional Bass
- Craig Blundell – Drums
- Peter Cox – Vocals (Guest)
- Jamie Finch – Vocals (Guest)
- Heather Findlay – Vocals (Guest)
- Jem Godfrey – Vocals (Guest)
- Steve Hogarth – Vocals (Guest)
- Lee Ingleby – Vocals (Guest)
- Nik Kershaw – Vocals (Guest)
- Rebecca Neew-Menear – Vocals (Guest)
- Kim Seviour- Vocals (Guest)