GROOVE ART FEATURE
Three By One
Itera
“Heavy Cloud No Rain” is the kind of song that comes back when you least expect it. It’s a skillful exploration of a feeling that everybody knows intimately, with a scope that’s almost hilarious - we’re talking about Louis XVI here.
The grandiosity doesn’t feel out of place - it’s served well by both the music and the performances, and it’s never too much.
“Fan The Fire” sounds so classic you'll wonder if you haven’t known it your whole life. “Scars” and “Use Your Wings” contain some truly infectious and memorable hooks.
But it’s “Firewalk” that really throws a wrench into your reflexive desire to compare and categorize Three By One next to its influences. This song stands alone, all Ogden’s personality and musicality shining through, stripped of the manic energy and bombast of the rest.
The result is beautiful, and at turns sounds like a piano bar crooner, or something you’d hear as the opening theme of a 90s sitcom that was a little too smart to get greenlit.
This whole record stepped out of a wormhole into 2025 to give us a breath of fresh air that absolutely nobody was expecting. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 38 years to hear more from this exceptional artist.
Top of the list this week is Three By One’s magnificent Itera, a glistening gem of a record that’s sure to excite fans of Rush, Peter Gabriel, and Sting.
Baltimore artist Steve Ogden has been working on various iterations - get it? - of this album for 38 years, and you can hear tantalizing flavors from each of those decades swirling throughout this record.
Ogden has previously remarked that he’s out to make prog-rock in digestible portions - some of these songs feel like he figured out how to do in 4 minutes what a lot of bands would’ve granted 12 minutes to explore.
This record sits comfortably alongside some of the best power trio work you can name - though it’s entirely the work of Ogden, hence “Three By One”. You’ll hear the influences, for sure, but there’s a real distinct personality to this work.
The playing is full of energy, humanity, vitality, the lyrics airtight, the vocal performances expert-level. The whole thing feels gloriously like a live performance.
Prior Features:
SUPPORT THIS ARTIST
ADD ON APPLE MUSIC
FOLLOW ON SPOTIFY