Starting with a panoramic buildup, "Here" bursts into roaring industrial darkness. Quieter and more exotic songs follow (the melancholy "Touched," the organ-driven lament "Dirty Hole"), majestic orchestral songs ("Flames," with its soft violin score), and ones that are almost catchy (the rippling "Pretty When You Cry" and the searching, eerie "Somewhere Else To Be"). It's hypnotic, deep, dark, and swirls like smoke.

Darkness is a theme that few singers really dip into. Crosby brings up and exposes the darkness, the doubt, the unhappiness and the love that live in people's souls. It has a sense of foreboding, but not of doom. "Where do I put the hate?... Where do I put the love?" he asks at the start. Flanked by religious paintings and statuary, there are songs about crises of faith and religious confusion, temptation, about love and pain, and finally about hope and love.

There's a strange purity to the music in "Theater, possibly because most of the instrumentation is Crosby's. His vocals are equally raw and honest; imperfect, but impossible to ignore. The steady but unexceptional singing, wails, groans, and whispers would sound silly, were they done by anyone else; the feeling you get with Crosby is that he's ripping out his emotions and splashing them all over the disc. The pain is beautiful, because it seems so real.

Soaring violin solos are flanked by tornado-like industrial music, showing the range of VAST. Crosby adds an extra dimension with tapes of Tibetan chants, Benedictine monks, and working men. His songwriting sometimes lacks in complexity, but makes up for that with its wrenching poignance and intimacy. "They whisper words into my ears/one speaks of truth and/one speaks of my fears..."

Musical passion, beauty, richness and meaning are brimming over VAST's debut. Call "Visual Audio Sensory Theater" the antidote to mass-produced pop and rock. For true innovation, look no further.

The best album I have ever heard...
After hearing "Touched" on the radio back in 98' I went out immediately and bought this CD. It is, for lack of a better word, unbelievable. The music is enchanting, haunting and powerful, the lyrics engage your emotions and really make you contemplate some of the finer parts of life. Not only is each song great, the album flows from track to track like a radiohead album, masterfully. The album starts off with the haunting tones of "Here" it then moves through the emotional cries of "Touched" and "Dirty Hole". Following those are "Pretty When You Cry" and "I'm Dying", my personal favorites, both resonate a hauntingly emotional and honest mood. "Flames" is the brooding love song that holds the middle of the album nicely. "Temptation" and "Three Doors" are wickedly pounding rock tracks filled with chanting. The album comes to a mellow and beautiful end with "The Niles Edge", "Somewhere Else To Be", and "You". Jon Crosby and VAST have created one of the best albums of the 90's and I wait in anticipation for their next release.

Sampling????
I found out about this musician (VAST) from the soundtrack of "Step Into Liquid". I instantly recognized the vocals on the song "Touched" as those of Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares. The song being sampled is "Polegnala E Pschenitza". The CD is also named Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares. The entire collection is really beautiful. I saw them live in Brooklyn in '94 and was deeply moved by it.
I don't think that VAST's sampling of Le Mystere's vocals generates an entirely original song even given it's "rock" context.

Brilliant
Fantastic, well produced album, I still listen to it often (purchased almost 4 years ago)

One of the greatest albums ever.
This is an essential to every collection. I definatly recomend this album to anyone who studies music, is a musician in training or is just a huge music lover.