Q: when does a band make loud, screaming punk, spacy poetry and psuedo-country, all without sounding stupid or pretentious?
Q: when can a band do more instrumentals than vocal songs, and not be surf?
Q: when does a band make a song that sounds like the Spin Doctors, but doesn't suck?
Q: when can a band use cheap-sounding electronics just as loyally as high-quality equipment and come out shining?
A: when it's Space Opera
There is virtually no uniformity to the sound of these two tapes, except for the common bond of weirdness. There are solid songs, bits of sound effects and poetry. The musical styles are all over the board, but the keyboard/drums/bass sound of the 70's 
are present (which I expected, considering Nathan's influences). With 45 tracks total between the two tapes, and such varied sounds, it's hard to single out a few tracks to study, but there are 4 that stand out for me. On World War 8, the garage scorcher "Emmett" is one of my personal faves, and "The Ant Dance" is as fun and minimalist as the title suggests. On
Impressions, Soundtrack of, "Virtuous" is a reflective instrumental that sounds a little like James Phillips' style. As for the poetry bits, they're more interesting than the Stone Temple Pilots interludes, but I'm not a big fan of poetry, so I won't try to critique it. 
In any case, Space Opera is without a doubt one of the most interesting, asthetic and unpretentious projects to grace my demo collection.
