Thank you so much to Rockstar Weekly for this amazing review:

http://www.rockstarweekly.com/cd-review-ben-levin-grup-pulse-of-a-nation.html

“It takes a lot of gusto and ambition to make a concept album. Seamlessly melding together an album’s songs so they not only compliment one another but form a cohesive musical narrative as well. A daunting task to be sure but one that allows the artists a tremendous amount of creative freedom. Concept albums are by their very nature highly experimental pieces. For a band that claims on their website to have been “founded on the notion that there is still some unique noise to be made”, experimentation should be the name of the game. The Ben Levin Group is a Boston based alternative rock band with an artistic bent and a classical twist. Their third album to date, Pulse Of A Nation is haunting sonic chronicle of mankind coming to terms with an impending apocalypse.

Here is a cool Ben Levin interview by Bart from Lords of Metal magazine:

Welcome and thanks for sending your record to us! Coming from the USA, have you ever been to Europe or are these your first steps in getting ready for a tour around here?
We haven’t made it out to Europe yet, but we certainly plan on getting a European tour going in the coming years. Right now we are just trying to get the word out to people.

Could you tell our readers some more about the genesis of the Ben Levin Group, and by extent also your own genealogy as a guitar player?
Since I was a kid I have always loved thinking up crazy stories. I tried making my own comic books, and really enjoyed movies and video games with great characters. Although I had been making weird noises on piano and saxophone for several years, it wasn’t until I started playing guitar at age fourteen that I reallized that music was the best way for me to tell stories. I became obsessed with guitar and wrote tons of music about all kinds of subjects. With a handheld four track recorder I wrote an album influenced by Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, and Steve Vai about Cain and Able from the old testament. I also wrote another guitar heavy album about a space ship that was supposed to save a portion of mankind before the sun exploded. I started bands and performed my music throughout high school, and when I started my first semester at Berklee College of Music, I formed Ben Levin Group. At first we played the music from our album ‘Departure’, which is a collection of short instrumental pieces each with their own mini story. However, after my first two years of school I got tired of writing that way and started composing long form forty minute sets at a time. These long pieces allowed me to better express myself and my stories because it is possible to develop musical themes over the course of an entire show rather than in a limited five minute window. So far I’ve written three of these forty minute epics which we perform at our shows now. ‘Pulse of a Nation’ is the first one I wrote, then there’s ‘Invisible Paradise’ and ‘Freak Machine’.

Now, to get done with the nasty question: I read your (interesting, by the way) report on auditioning for the Lady Gaga band. I couldn’t help but wonder what made you decide to do it. Was it the mere idea of touring the world? Or of getting your name known? Or do you also consider it to be good for you as an artist or guitarist? Feel free to elaborate on this question.

Check out this awesome video review of “Pulse of a Nation.” (They start talking about the album at 12:45)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisxQbsAXJY

Hello!  I just thought I’d give you an update about what has been going on in the BLG universe lately.  Today Vince Welch, Courtney Swain, and I will be heading to a new studio in Quincy, MA to track some guitar, violin, and voice for the new Ben Levin Group and Bent Knee albums.  We have been in the studio a lot lately because we are recording two new 40 minute epics “Invisible Paradise” and “Freak Machine” both of which have a lot of layers and orchestration.  We won’t be releasing those for quite a while but in the mean time, Greg Bowen, the BLG album art guy is working on the “Pulse of a Nation” graphic novel.

I have been obsessed with comic books and drawing lately, and I am really excited to be able to translate the Pulse story into a  graphic novel.  I love Greg’s style and the finished product is going to be a beautiful piece of  sequential visual art that will go really well with the music.  You can see the introduction to the book on the website now.  The second half of the graphic novel is going to be drastically different from the introduction but I don’t want to ruin the surprise!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you’ve been up to.  Please feel free to share links to your own albums or art work in response to this post!

Here are some of our favorite quotes about the new album: