William Shatner
approaches his recording career from the perspective of an actor: he's not driven to say something but give him a good role and he'll show up at your studio.
Cleopatra Records
and producer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist/general mastermind
Billy Sherwood
-- perhaps best-known as a member of a latter-day '90s incarnation of Yes -- did come up with a good role for
Shatner
on 2013's
Ponder the Mystery
. They had him, well, ponder the mystery of life to the sound of old-fashioned prog rock, a canny move that acknowledged the advancing age of the former Captain Kirk along with his deep associations with sci-fi.
seizes upon this vein of Shatnerdom, nearly burying his inherent hamminess beneath the glistening gloss of analog synthesizers and some serious shredding by the likes of
Steve Vai
,
Mick Jones
Vince Gill
Edgar Froese
, and
Zoot Horn Rollo
. While
Has Been
's 2004 collaboration with
Ben Folds
, played off the unintentional camp of the
Transformed Man
acknowledges the silliness but never celebrates it; there's a sincerity here -- a sincerity that was largely missing from
Seeking Major Tom
, his 2011 collection of covers for
Cleopatra
-- that brings this album closer to the
, where it never was clear what was real and what was fake. It adds mystery to a record that's all about enigmas, and, when combined with
Sherwood
's clever aural interpretation of
Roger Dean
's album art, it makes for a record that's more enjoyable than it has any right to be. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine