February 12,8:34 AM

by DouglasMcDaniel, Phoenix Performing ArtsExaminer

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Sons of the Addicted

Sons of the Addicted is an old band with a new name going back a decade in Ouray County, Colorado, but as theyears have gone by, and after shopping their wares to major labels with the more familiar name to locals, Fractalized, they decided to entirely re-tool everything they do.

"We couldn't work it out the way we wanted things to be," said Bailey Vince, the band's drummer, ofthe new Sons' attempts during the past year to notch a major label recording contract. "No one wanted to give us the deal we felt we were entitled to."

But rather than simply keep banging their heads against that wall, they dropped the name, took on a new one, and completely overhauled their approach to music that was originally a melange of highly complex instrumentals, certainly funky enough, but in theband members' final analysis, in need of tightening up for the purposes ofincreased accessibility on the stage, and, of course, for mainstream radio play. The end result of that effort is their first full-length CD, "Fractal World,"  has been recorded over the course of the past two years.

The CD has been released on Phantasma Records, an independent label named after gothic beings who inhabit dreams.

The band got its start in 1999 when Stosch Dembitsky and Vince were in high school in Ridgway. In the timesince then, they have seen the acceptance to original music grow from a cowtown region of bars and clubs who were only interested in hearing coverversions of familiar songs local audiences into a region where progressivethinking (and therefore creative) have become more accepted.

"It's really good to see alternative forms of music become more accepted," he says. "Theincrease in the numbers of places to play in Ridgway, with the Switchback and Sherbino Theater, come along, too. It's been really cool to see the changes."

Over the years, Fractalized,and before that, Fractalia, has been a six-piece outfit playing a wide range offunky, chunky sounds reminiscent of such '70s era fusion artists as Frank Zappa, Joe Satriani and Jean-Luc Ponty, or more recent bands as Tool andPrimus. But now it's a four-piece featuring the other original member andcreative light, Dembitsky, who plays lead guitar, sings and does most of the composing, as well as newer members Joel Waller on bass and Michael Scherr on the keys.

With Zappa as one of their musical heroes, they do indeed have a sound that, as well known as that late odfather of independent music was, hardly was known for reaching out to larger audiences. But with all of this new thinking, they are still"fractal" to the core.

The term, derived from thecomplexity in natural elements such as crystals, which seems chaotic at theoutset, but are actually highly organized in a chaos theory kind of way,certainly fits the idea of a band that needs a few listenings to grasp.

"This the first recording that we have done that really does our sound justice," Vince says. As faras the new name goes, the old one had to go because a metal band in Mexico was ascending to its own popularity with the name, Fractalia. And then, he says,the name Fractalized "never really got to the point that it worked with us."

Vince says it's amazing how hard it is, with so many bands out there, to find an original name. Many a band has ended up in legal and copyright limbo due to the fact some dance band onthe other side of the country, no matter how small, has had one name before another band. Regarding the Fractalized moniker, he says, "There was noway we could prove we had it longer."

And so they chose a name suggested by their producer, Hotchkiss-based Dik Darnell, re-born as Sons of theAddicted.

"We decided to go with something entirely new. We wanted an attention getter, something that would get people talking," he says. "It (the new name) was intended as a kind of social commentary. It has to do with all of the dependencies in our society.The addiction to oil, the addiction to substances. It's about how we've erected a prison where we are victimized by our addictions."

~ Douglas McDaniel