VIRTUALITY PRESS: REVIEWS Page Six (T through Z):   TERRORIZER MAGAZINE: Maybe I'm not the right person to review this. As broad-minded as I claim to be, listening to 72-minutes of 'trance-inspired' neo new age rock is not my idea of fun. VIRTUALITY may do all of the right things for fans of Malmsteen-like guitar theatrics and 80's synth pop, but I'm at a loss to understand why Mr. Mosher would want to approach music from such a bland, soul-destroying direction when the woes of the world ar more appropriately reflected in the severe sounds of black or death metal or hardcore.   TOMBSTONE: Essentially an album from someone who desperately wants to be David Coverdale. I'm hearing "Is this Love", for example, strongly in the title track. I actually like Whitesnake, 1987 being a classic of embarrassing 80s rock, but it doesn't mean we need new attempts with a new century. A new sound might work, so credit for Scott for trying to add a slightly more (80s) ambient sound. (5.5/10 points)   TRANSCENDING THE MUNDANE: Its' been a while since Scott Mosher's 1996 solo instrumental release, AMBIENT EARTH, and after listening to VIRTUALITY, I'd say it's been worth the wait. You get over 70 minutes of open minded progressive rock. Half the songs feature the vocals of Todd Corsa. Scott proves to be a very talented musician. VIRTUALITY is not your average progressive rock album as it embodies forward thinking techniques and a willingness to experiement. Scott creates all the music here by playing guitars, bass, keyboards, percussion and prgramming. Like his friend Chris from F5, Scott brings a sense of ambience to his keyboards. Corsa also proves to be a rea l find. He sounds very similar to Geddy Lee and you could even swear the infectious "Re_Define" us a RUSH cover, but he has great command and an undeniable presence on songs like "Virtuality" and "The Human: Machine". There is no sense of urgency but Scott writes music with room to explore and VIRTUALITY never gets boring. The production is excellent and his trasteful solos are always a pleasure to hear. - (90/100)   UMBRELLA ZINE: Check out the latest CD, VIRTUALITY - hip ambient neo-progressive cyber rock, and some very cool graphic design work ... (Jesta says YEAH, he's good). Hints of Geddie vocalization style, a few riffs like, um, those guys with the flyin' pigs and that wall (hehehe) ... and a hint of Vangelis, and a gentle touch o' Celtic influence ... aaahhhhhh BUY THE CD and feed your head well. He's also got a great sense of humor - we need more of this guy - oh, he's got a class graphic design business (Jesta is a GD, and says "he's good"). (Watch for a feature interview of Scott Mosher/Virtuality this spring!)   UNDERGROUND ZINE SCENE: VIRTUALITY combines trance, ambient, new age and progressive metal music along with lyrics that cover such topics as socio-political and environmental issues. "The Human: Machine" is an excellent piece that speaks of lost humanity taken over by cloning and bio-genetics. "A Season of Fire" is an excellent instrumental that is a two-parter, The Crimson Strain and Redstorm Rising. I love the ambience of "Attilon Sunrise". Scott's influences range from Dream Theater, Kitaro, Fates Warning, Tangerine Dream and they really show in some of the writing and arangements but Scott definitely has his own sound and style. "Re-Define" definitely has some Rush influence as does "The Dreaming Eye" to a lesser degree. What's more, the artwork in the 16-page booklet was all done by Scott. Anyone into neo-progressive metal should check this out. - (8.5/10)   UNDERTOW MAGAZINE: I'm completely flabbergasted by this release. Scot Mosher (guitar, bass, keyboards, programming, percussion and voices) recorded more then 70 minutes of music. He only got the help of Todd Corsa who sang on two songs and played lead guitar on one song and Mickey James who played a bass solo. The bio says that "Virtuality" merges techno-trance, ambient, new-age and cinematic rock with neo progressive song structures. You can call it whatever you want but the musical landscape that is created on this album is atmospheric, dramatic, haunting and captivating. I would advise you to listen to this album with headphones and open your mind for a great journey into the musical mind of Scott Mosher. The music is richly layered epic and fantastically arranged. Sometimes dreamy and sometimes heavy, with other words you get the full spectrum of music on this disk. "Virtuality" reminds me at certain points of the music of Ayreon. The biggest different is however that Ayreon uses a whole battery of guest vocalists and musicians and that Scott did it all himself. Not only the music is top quality but also the packaging is very good. People who are into adventurous music should not think twice and order this album right away, you won't regret it. (9)   UNDER THE VOLCANO: Virtuality. This earlier effort by Mr. Mosher is as lush in musical cyberscapes as it is in digital imagery. The cheesy vocals aren't as prevalent as in the newer release, and there are more instrumentals. 'The Human: Machine' contains Mosher's own synthesized vocals'now that's the sound of Space Rock! This CD is a good starting point for anyone interested in delving into the digital realm of Scott Mosher.   UNIVERSITY OF DECIBEL/STEVE HUSK REVIEW: It occurred to me during my drive home from Powermad 2001, while stuck in the Fort McHenry Tunnel and inhaling heavy doses of truck exhaust fumes, that the ambient rock cranking from my car speakers and reverberating against the tunnel walls was of a higher evolved form than the unconnected sounds which I previously associated with the "ambience" genre. Suffice it to say, my first meeting with ambient music did not go well. Back in my bachelor days, when my roommates and I competed in our house computer football league, some of them would play ambient albums during their games against me in the hopes of distracting and disorienting me. This 'music' was spacey, with no structure and no energy, and was, according to my taste and my interpretation, making no discernible point at all. My roomies apparently knew I held that opinion about ambient music, because, on the rare occasion that one of them actually defeated me, *all* of them loudly---and frequently---proclaimed that I was not able to handle the trance-like artistry of such an advanced musical form. (There will be a brief pause, while I laugh my ass off.) I tend to believe my roomies went the 'psych warfare' route against me because they realized I had more football knowledge than any two of them combined. However, the possibility *did* occur to me that they were doing this as a direct result of my playing back-to-back-to-back Kansas songs in an attempt to distract and disorient *them.* Regrettably, the truth in this matter may never be known. Had Scott Mosher come up to me with a copy of VIRTUALITY in hand and touted it as ambient, I probably would have suffered through a few computer football flashbacks before politely declining. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to talk with him before I even found out he was a musician. Regardless of the subject matter, there was almost always a traceable link from what Scott said to his political opinions, his sociological observations, and even his environmental convictions. Normally, somebody who feels the need to bring his personal beliefs into absolutely any and every topic of conversation runs the risk with me of rating high on my Obnoxious-O-Meter, which almost always leads to me coming up with new and improved ways of blanking that person out. However, I learned early on that Scott did *not* take the zealot-esque 'shove-my-point-of-view-down-your-throat' approach, but instead presented his viewpoints and opinions with enough open-endedness so that his discussional counterparts would feel they were being conversed with as opposed to being lectured. I was convinced that this same thoughtfulness and intelligence would find its way into Scott's sonic ! craft, so I snagged up a copy of "Virtuality" without even hearing a note. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because Scott took ambience in a direction I wasn't aware it could go. The music, in quite a few places, is so much more driving (a solid bass range, and guitar patterns that border along the thrash realm) than what this genre showed me before. Ergo: this is ambient music with teeth! If my former roommates tried playing an ambient album like VIRTUALITY during our games, I would have gone undefeated. Even when Scott calms down the pace and the mood, the final product is still several evolutionary eras beyond what my former roomies attempted to unnerve me withthese melodic and mellow passages are more along the lines of structured orchestrations as opposed to endless chord sustains and meandering attempts at establishing a spacey feel for the sake of trying to come across as spacey. Spinning this disc will be pleasing enough, but spending quality time with the booklet will give you a clearer understanding as to how much passion and overall artistic talent Scott crammed into the entire VIRTUALITY project. Amongst the liner notes is an analysis of himself and why he wrote the lyrics that he wrote. He even included Internet addresses of organizations he feels passionate about. In fact, there was so much Scott wanted to tell us, I had to rent the high voltage electron microscope at Berkeley Lab so I could read the tiny print. However, for those who are more visually based, the stories that Scott's fantastic graphic artwork want to tell you should more than suffice. Scott conceded to me that it might take a few additional listens for VIRTUALITY to sink in completely. Yet, I played it in its entirety almost once a day after Powermad for nearly a month, discovering something new with each listen, without reaching any kind of a saturation point. Actually, I don't think the 'overload' concept could ever apply to VIRTUALITY intelligent art, regardless of the genre and the delivery, never seems to wear thin with me.   VIOLENT SUNRISE: Friendly dude, Scott Mosher, of much verbose qualities, requested this to be filed under "ambient, neo-progressive cyber-rock." I'm sure all the Virtuality reviews have this phrase... I would agree if I could reminisce about the days of the mid 80s. I could imagine those rock kids feigning to the thought of their beloved Rush adopting New Wave tendencies. Spacey, flying through the Blade Runner sky... wow, flick that bic! Show me Terry Bozzio! Go Spyro Gyra! But hey those were great days cuz keyboards dominated and were actually referred to synthesizers, and the synths probably had better sounds that those found on prog metal today. Its cool to hear this stuff set to rock drums. The talent is admirable on synth, on guitar, on everything else but one thing... So I am only hung up on the singer on a few of the songs. There's a guy who does approach Geddy Lee tone but not Geddy Lee ability. He's more like some Italia-disco freestyle singer who seems to try too hard. But with Scott Mosher's ambidextrous, multi-disciplines (I'm trying to adopt his lingo here) we could get something that approaches the explorations of today's new age/techno/DJ albums. (2.5/5)   XAOC MAGAZINE: Scott Mosher could easilly put among XAOC Magazine's top discoveries of last year. His second solo album, VIRTUALITY is a piece of art which most surely will be strongly admired by the lovers of beautiful and thoughtful music. Just for the record - Scott's first band appearance was in the lines of the 'funcore thrashers' Horsemeat and their gorgeous effort 'Meet the Meat' (95). Scott's first solo effort was called AMBIENT EARTH (96) and embodied the first wave of his ambient/new age instrumental rock. Generally, VIRTUALITY is much more solid, better recorded, and offers more refined musical ideas. There are not so many bands that can be put among the obvious influences so I'll only mention the 80's work of Tangerine Dream and Vengelis' Blade Runner. The overall mood is truly magical and relaxed. Tracks like "Virtuality" are more rock-oriented and up beat while most of the album offers calmer, well planned and well executed psychdelia. Scott's keyboard playing is the leading factor for the music. It's simple but very effective and spacey. We should also pay attention to the fine leads of the mainman and his guest guitarist Todd Corsa. Although the production and the mix still leave what to be desired, when the music is good, the rest is not of the biggest importance. It's absolutely necessary to try to understand the lyrical and visual concept of the album, which offers the spiritual and social searches of a contemporary man. Scott's view is interesting for us because it is carried in light of his artistic intuition, something not so many of us possess. There are truly wonderful places that carry the flame of a big future perspective, therefore I'm expecting something really serious from Scott to come up by the end of this year, when the next record is expected. An almost brilliant job! - (4/5)   ZINE SCENE: Viruality combines Trance, Ambient, New age and Progressive metal music along with lyrics that cover such topics as socio-political and environmental issues. The Human Machine is an excellent piece that speak of lost humanity taken over by cloning and Biogenetics. A Sense of Fire is an excellent instrumental that is a two parter, The Crimson Strain and Redstorm Rising. I love the ambience of Attilian Sunrise. Scott's influences range from Dream Theater, Kitaro, Fates Warning, Tangarine Dream and they really show in some of the writing and arrangements but Scott definitely has his own sound and style. Re-Define definitely has some Rush influence as does The Dreaming Eye to a lesser degree . What's more the artwork in the 16 page booklet was all done by Scott. Anyone into neoprogressive metal should check this out! - 8.5/10