VOLUME ONE

This is in my opinion the second best album this year, after Anglagard's Viljans Oga, and I've never liked a math rock album this much. However, this is not entirely math rock. It's more of a combination of most styles of progressive rock, in a continuously evolving order, constantly changing in feeling.

The start of the album is known to be slow, a long mysterious synthesizer wave that takes more than two minutes before the song really gets started in a wild explosion of quick guitar lines and loud drumming. It goes from easy jamming to a small build-up, and back again, and that continues for around six minutes. Then, the guitar fades away, and a squirting trumpet takes over with an acid-jazz-rock-like solo. This part sounds a lot like the instrumental section of 21st Century Schizoid Man, with the drums and bass doing a sort of rhythmic improvisation and the trumpet sounding like KC's Ian McDonald.

After that, the song 'stops' for a while, with a part that sounds like the end of TaaB pt. 1 (Yes, it all sounds like something else), picking it back up with the quick guitar play of the first part, but this time better. It's more rhythmic, more logical, and there are some very memorable parts. At 28 minutes, when the music has repeated itself enough to get you comfortable, but it's just not annoying, they make an end to it.

Well, not really the end, but the start of the final build-up. The drums lead the music here, and eventually, the violins and the guitars follow. The last seven minutes feature an epic haze of GYBE-like post rock. This is a real highlight of the album, leaving you stunned. The most amazing is how well this fitted after the rest of the album. After the uncontrolled mix of emotions, the musicians now really get it together and that creates a feeling of satisfaction. The album has rounded itself up and the journey is over.

The album is original, interesting and modern, but still not perfect. First of all, prog fans who prefer more calm music will eventually get annoyed by the constant push and the rough drums. Besides, the first part sounds a bit too messy, even for math rock. It appears to be a bit lost, as the guitar line keeps shifting between styles. For me, this album will be rounded down to four stars, although I would have rather given it a 4,5. Great album, especially for fans of avant, math rock, eclectic prog, post rock and maybe even jazz-rock. Too bad it's not available as a cd (yet).