MONTH OF THE YEAR

Twin Age play a style of neo-prog which to my ears sounds closely related to early IQ - heavily influenced by Genesis, with a guitarist who is able to do a nigh-eerie Steve Hackett impersonation and a keyboardist who is able to masterfully evoke the sounds of classic 70s synthesisers; as with IQ, their music tends towards the darker and more mysterious ends of the Genesis sound, and like IQ they are at their best when they get into a long instrumental section in which the guitar and keyboards can play off against each other.

Their weak link, unfortunately, is lead vocalist Johan Hansson, who gives an earnest effort but who just isn't that compelling. He's not a detriment, but he isn't that much of an asset either - and part of me thinks that just going all-instrumental would have been a better course here; thankfully, there's enough long instrumental breaks that whenever the vocals are at risk of starting to grate things pick up soon.

So, I can't say their vocalist is up at the level of Peter Nicholls, and musically they are not the most original crowd on the block. That said, I think on the whole they've produced a more-or-less credible album here and most neo-prog fans will enjoy it for a couple of listens - IQ fans in particular, since Twin Age's approach seems decidedly close to theirs.