SUBSOUNDS

Heavy space/psychedelic rock that satisfies the prog qualities of those looking for music to remind them of their old HAWKWIND, ELOY, PINK FLOYD, and BOWIE (and even early PORCUPINE TREE) heroes.

1. "Cyclical Night" (12:35) interesting. Not bad. Definitely retro-NeoClassic . Everybody on board is sufficiently skilled and versed to pull of solid, polished song that sounds as if it could've come from a 1970s album. Roger Lopes has a strong if-familiar voice and laid back singing style (somewhere between BLUE ÖYSTER CULT's Eric Bloom, FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM's Carl McCoy, and IRON MAIDEN's Bruce Dickinson--there's even a bit of BÖC's "I Love the Night" quality and feel to the overal sonosphere). The spaciousness and maturity of this song make it quite comforting, even inviting. It just keeps getting better with each and every listen! And the warmth of the wrap-around sound is so amazing! (22.75/25)

2. "Digital Coma" (17:19) mostly soundtrack-like synthesized space and weather sounds for the first seven minutes: it's like we're floating in the silence of space, hearing the internal computer and machine-generated sounds of our otherwise-uninhabited derelict life-support vessel. (It's also quite like Vangelis' music during the scenes in Blade Runner in which Deckard is hunting Sebastian, Pris and Roy in the derelict hotel in the Ninth Sector.) Then the song that comes forward (and carries through to the end of the 17+ minutes) is one that reminds me very much of the music from one of my favorite Smooth Prog albums from the past 15 years, LIFESIGNS' wonderful self-titled 2013 debut. In the 12th minute the music comes to fullness with a FLOYDIAN palette before going down a kind of meets- BÖC tangent in the 14th. The instrumental sections that follows is quite powerful: with perfect electric guitar serving as our guide within a sonosphere of some very protective bass and keyboard guards. At 14:20 we return to the Lifesigns/Floydian pastiche--complete with strong Floydian background vocal choir (all from Kim Chandler?) The song ends surprisingly, rather suddenly, on a couple of kind of simple guitar riffs, leaving me scratching my head as to what was just (supposed to be) happening over the last 17 minutes. Elements of this song are absolutely great--especially the amazing sound engineering. (It really does feel as if you're inside a sphere of virtual reality in which everything is occurring around you, coming at you, comforting you, from every possible direction.) There are some elements that don't quite work (for me). But the good far outweigh the questionable. (33/35)

3. "Violeta's Dream" (23:44) this one comes across as a total extrapolation of the spaciest of Pink Floyd: the original aim of Steven Wilson's Porcupine Tree project taken to the next levels--taken far beyond Steven/Tree, Bruce Soord, Riverside, Mystery, Airbag or anyone else in NeoProg's Floydian Universe has ever accomplished. To me, it's like taking Floyd into the Eighth Dimension. It is not, however, always the best choices of construct and sound palette to achieve such attention and honor: there are plenty of segments and motifs that fall back onto fairly simple structures and/or minimal sound palettes. It does feel like traveling through someone else's dream but a dream that is often mundane and forgettable. (39.75/45)

4. "Blue" (14:46) TD-like electronic piano and spiraling church organ chords fill the first two minutes of this before the full rock band ensemble kicks into gear. The song that ensues sounds like some solid NeoProg that could come from any number of second-tier NeoProg bands. (Bands like Grand Stand, Silhouette, Cosmograf, Galahad, Drifting Sun, Gandalf's Fist, Comedy of Errors, Evership immediately come to mind.) There are passages in which I'm reminded rather strongly of both Giancarlo Erra's NOSOUND and Jason Hart's I AND THOU projects of the last decade. Nice--with great sound--but rather simple music and less-fully-developed sound palette--but nothing to write home about. Gabriel D'Incao's grandiose Gershwinian classical "grand piano" solo in the tenth through thirteenth minutes comes as a bit of a surprise (I'll bet he'd been sitting on that little gem for many years), but it serves as a very nice little interlude and reset, but the return to rockdom is not as pretty or satisfying as one might hope. (I think I like Gabriel's solo piece better.) (26.125/30)

5. "Voice of God" (16:53) now the band is back on track: a wonderful, fully-formed and full-surround sound visceral experience with some very proggy music (great drumming, guitar play, and wordless vocalese, courtesy of Kim Chandler. (Is this the band's homage to Floyd's "Great Gig in the Sky"?) In the middle of the fourth minute the music suddenly stops and then restarts with a vocal-led motif that feels like something off of a lost SEAL album. Incredible! The sixth minute brings heavy power chord explosions before the underlying piano leads us into a race-against-time instrumental passage in which guitar, piano, and percussion take turns leading the way--often in theatric, even jazzy, time-syncopated ways. Pedro D'Incao's searing electric guitar now sounds like a cross between that of cookin' Carlos Santana and Stephen Thelen/SONAR's David Torn. The ninth minute sees the piano-leadership taking the music into a bit of a Billy Joel pop-jazz direction, and thereafter, the band trying to bring it back to progland, but first we have to have another classical piano interlude (starting at 10:00). Spacey pitch-warped synth riffs and chords join Gabriel's gentle, pensive Chopin-like piano play, keeping me satisfied as a prog hopeful, reminding me somewhat of some of Rick Wakeman's interludes in his (or Yes's) prog music. At 12:20 "horns" help us emerge out into a Floydian "light" for a gorgeous section of "As Sure as Eggs Is Eggs"-like prog orgasm and ecstatic rapture. Return Ms. Chandler's vocalese to the mix, culminating in a scream of seeming-relief, and then a piano, synth, and cymbal crashing finish/dénouement. Well met, boys (and girl), well met! Not quite what I'm expecting beyond the Pearly Gates but a nice human version of that which might be. (31.75/35)

Total Time 85:17

as with fellow-2025 release from the DOCTORS OF SPACE, there is true innovation going on throughout this album. For me it is the engineering feat of complete surround sound--what I've come to call "the sonsophere": the effect of the sounds coming from the instruments feeling as if they are surrounding, engulfing, swirling, even guiding you, from all directions--directions which change are somehow able to change (like the old-fashioned "panning" effects one could manipulate on the engineer's sounding board). I've been hearing and feeling more and more of this effect in recent years In my wonderful Soundcore Space Q45 noise-cancelling headphones) and am not sure how the sound engineering technologies have accomplished this--what enables them to manipulate sound "directionality" the way they seem to be doing--but it is amazing! It is fulfilling an achievement that I've been seeking, wondering if possible, waiting for since my Brian Eno audiophile days of the late 1970s. This is, in my opinion, a revolutionary achievement in sound delivery technology. While I'm not ready to grant Atomic Time the credit--nor their engineering and production crew--but they have definitely presented in the complete fullness as I've never heard it until now: 85 minutes of complete and total musical immersion. Amazing! I urge everyone in the Prog community to check this album out-- especially if you have good headphones--and especially the first two songs.

A-/4.5 stars; a minor masterpiece of highly creative retro-respective NeoProg that presents Prog World with some truly extraordinary sound innovations. Highly recommended!

Social review comments

Review related links

• Send comments to BrufordFreak
• Report this review (#3210484)
• Buy ATOMIC TIME music online with PA partners
• Show all ATOMIC TIME MP3/Stream
• Go to ATOMIC TIME page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Subsounds page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for ATOMIC TIME related discussions