THE DARK THIRD

This review is about the double CD edition of The Dark Third, which includes a lot of material from other EP's of the band in addition to the nine tracks that the album originally had on its British launch!

But on its first years of life, Pure Reason Revolution released some EP's before making their first full length called The Dark Third. And this EP's were much in the vein of their debut, so it makes sense that some of these tracks are included in the double CD edition, because the original was some kind of EP's compilation anyway back then.

And what can we find here? In my opinion The Dark Third is one of the best British prog-rock albums of the last decade, with tremendously catchy space-psychedelic-heavy prog songs which deserve to be enjoyed multiple times. The voice of Jon Courtney is perfectly intertwined with the Chloe Alper one, making the vocals of the album really attractive and immediately enjoyable, just like the marvelous guitars and fine rhythmic base.

The songwriting is also outstanding, mixing wisely strong riffs with pure atmospheric prog, much in the vein of Porcupine Tree, that's true, but with enough original elements to give the music of Pure Reason Revolution a unique personality. And the Lyrics? Pure beautiful craziness!

Best Tracks: I really enjoy every song included here! But maybe In Aurelia is my favorite one.

Conclusion: The Dark Third was some kind of compilation of previous EP's of the band along a pair of new songs, and the double CD edition of the album is more of the same. But that's marvelous, because the quality of this first stage of the band was just outstanding and even in the form of a double CD it never gets boring.

Maybe is not the most original band on earth, because they clearly take elements of acts like Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd. But I find The Dark Third so awesome that I muss rate it with five solid stars!

My rating: *****