HOLLOW

Little Atlas' latest release Hollow is not exactly a hard album to get into. But to establish exactly how good it is is a lot harder, at least to me. The sound and style is in between neo prog and crossover in my opinion with a touch of eclectic prog (Paranoiac !). The style is quite unusual, it's most of all melodic but there are also dissonances detectable. They make the music a bit less accessible but like I said it's all in all not really hard to comprehend for an experienced progfan.

The songs are all in between 4 and 6 minutes with the exception of two out of the ten that are offered. So that's quite short for prog standards and it confirms in a way that this is not the usual neo prog which has longer compositions usually. On the other hand the songs are very compact so a lot is happening in most of them. The longest track is the second, called Silence and is the most interesting one to me. It starts calm and ambient but after three minutes the song gets to usual Little Atlas style, not too complicated that is. Because of the atmosphere it produces this is still the best song of the album in my opinion. Symbiosis is another great track.

For where the other songs are concerned: they are all of the same quality level, so pretty high but nothing truly exceptional I have to say. Final verdict is that it's a very good album just falling short for the excellence status. So I will round down to three (3,4).