This is a band that sounds like a project earthed by Richard Wright of Pink Floyd. Kevin Moore has done his damnest to imitate a fair percentage of Richard's style both solo and with Pink Floyd, Mike Portnoy has finnaly toned down his in your face drumming and production, and I never cared for Fates Warning, but this is listenable.
Striking tunes such as "Hello Helecopter", and "Standby" are totally the listenable side of Progressive rock without harsh key and timing changes, or talent wars.
The album gets a bit heavy and compressed at a few points, but for the most part has a very airy sound, and a few samples of news clips for effect, but none of the attempts most moderen producers make at imitating Pink Floyd and 70's progressive by using special mixing effects to compensate for badly written songs and content.
Speaking of Pink Floyd, there are two cover songs present. "Set Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" is very original while retaining it's character and recognizability. With most bands if they even make attempts to cover complicated good songs, it is usually a peice of crap not worthy of any listening. Niel Young's "New Mama" is also covered making a somewhat ok song more fluid and moderen sounding. The fact they decided upon this Neil Young song makes you take notice that this band is not trying to chart hits, or sell CD's for profit. They simply enjoy making music which is what these new darlings of former metal prog bands have matured too. Quite refreshing.
I also reccomend Transatlantic, Bridge Across Forever. While not as mello and far left as OSI, it is more later Beatlesque in nature, borrowing many of it's tecniques from the White Album through Abbey Road period. I am sure most of you will enjoy these two interesting newer albums.
And hey, this blows away Britney or Eminem, it's funny how record companies and the public can't dicern good from bad music. But fortunately for us Audiophiles, we get the good end of that stick
