Man, such prog song titles! Keyboard ace and singer Kerzner has form working with key figures from his chosen field e.g. Simon Collins (son of Phil). Steve Hackett, Keith Emerson, Steven Wilson, Joe Lynn Turner, Jon Anderson, Alan Parsons. You get the picture……

The above will either have you salivating to hear this record or have put you off completely, I suspect. The artwork and design is a bit Porcupine Tree, I reckon. So we press ‘Play’ and…

Prelude is a soft piano tease, then we are off into the solemn semi-martial rhythm of  Hypocrites with a very Floydian feel, all darkness and delay and sneering guitar. Hearts on sleeves, for sure. The riffs are robust and insistent, the drumming far too busy but heaven knows they are not alone in this, are they? The bass tone is well-recorded. The hand-wringing lyric suits the neurotic, unsettling backdrop.

Static is slow, steady and moody. And melodic, in a Floyd fashion. A pretty good shot at disconnect. Reckless is all edgy acoustic guitar and conspiratorial vocal with much better and simpler drumwork, sounding like a band effort much more. Lyric centres on the catharsis of fast driving and presumably living. Chain Reaction has a jaw-jutting chordal progression to start then turns into REM! crossed with early Yes in their Peter Banks days that is, a band I saw. Trust uses stately clanking piano and again sounds very Roger Waters in its melancholy and Leslie’d guitar half-inched from ELO, I venture.

Quiet Storm is a tone poem couched in weird sounds. Next up is Dirty Soap Box – ‘here we are at the crossing point of lunacy and mayhem’ goes the lyric over a Gentle Giant dark-riff setting with a tempo that doesn’t settle. This is Dream Theater territory which I cannot stand but many adore. The Truth Behind is a welcome less intense interlude notwithstanding the dour lyric. Right Back To The Start has a pretty and airy melody. beguiling and spring-heeled. The instrumental Statistic comes next, will the ensemble resist the urge to emphasise their chops? What do you think?

Millennium Man has a machine-gun riffing start before rolling into the best song on the record. A Jet-black funk outing with a real edge, acerbic lyric. Splendid ! Tells it like it is but without the heavy-handed approach used too often elsewhere on the record, Then we get State Of Innocence taking us back to the stoned Floyd mode. Things wrap up with The Carnival Of Life in five sections. I reckon this is a subconscious nod to King Crimson…

An album of solemn shadowy music for the most part, put together with skill and a tale-spinning thrust, but for me it’s too much in awe of classic prog bands which stamps on its organic intent. In other words the players sound as though they are playing what they should for their genre to preserve their (deserved) status amongst peers. Those peers will love the album, but beyond that…. one has to wonder.

Pete Sargeant