LE’s top 10 bands/artists, #9: HeyLasFas

Why this artist?

Over the last few years, I learned something about myself. I really, really like concept albums. “Antichrist Superstar”, “Act II: The Father of Death”, and “Diamond Dogs” are high atop my list of favorite and most listened to albums. And LasFas’s “Nightfall” is such an album as well. The powerful guitar riff in “With Poise; With Anger” hooked me into the album, and the storyline brought me back again and again as I attempted to decipher it. I still can’t skip around the album when I listen to it. It has to be start to finish, front to back, every time.

Best of all, LasFas didn’t turn out to be a one-trick pony. A lot of the music he has released since has been heavily electronic, with new prog rock pieces trickling out every so often as well. For an artist who experiments so much, it’s very surprising there aren’t more duds. But even when he’s working in genres I don’t care for, he always manages to be entertaining and imaginative.

Are they still around?

Most certainly. The upcoming “Destiny” album is highly awaited. So is “Someone Like Her”, the next part of “Rarity” series, and about a gazillion other concept albums that I’m not sure even he can keep track of.

Level of obsession?

How about the Charlie Brown Christmas parody I made a week or so ago? Or the scrapped cover of “Tension” that I worked on for the re-release of Nightfall? Or how I rambled something about oranges in a voice recording and now it is apparently a part of one of the track on Destiny?