A HIGHER VANTAGE POINT

Quiet and pleasant instrumental prog rock with a dominant jazzy accent. I would not call it symphonic, but athmospheric. The quasi permanent use of a strident sinus wave melodic line (similar to the one that can be eard in some Asia tubes) is exciting and boring at the same time. Like a mix of video game music, jazz, and rock can be. Nothing bad, everything is well composed and well played. Thier MySpace page sites influences from "Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Ozric Tentacles, Kansas, Genesis, UK, Camel, Rush, October Project, Level 42, Eloy, FM, The New Deal, Michael Brecker, Minimum Vital, Renaissance, IQ, Marillion, Dixie Dregs, Dream Theater, Saga, Jean-Michel Jarre, David Sancious, Brian Auger, and a host of others". Not sure were the Jean-Michel Jarre influence is though.

I got this album some time ago. My first impression was not good so I put it aside to see if it matured like a good cheese or a wine. It didn't.

This is so far the only album from The Other Side. An album that shows a bit promise, but is deeply rooted in dullness. The music is a mix of ELP and their clones, Genesis and their clones + fusion. The main instruments is tangents. That means keyboards and piano. A saxophone also makes a visit. This in addition to bass, drums and sound samples. Mostly of Winston Churchill. There is no vocals here.

On the positive side, both the bassist and the drummer are very good when the music is tilting towards fusion. I really like the bassist here. And that is the positives from this album.

On the negative side, the music simply lacks any personality whatsoever. I am not sure why the good name of Winston Churchill is being dragged into this album. I guess this is a feeble attempt to give this album some personality. It does not work. The quality here is dubious too. The music is simply forgettable. It is also pretty docile and may lead to sudden catnaps. Don't drive a car/bus and listen to this album at the same time. You may end up wiping out a generation of school children.

There are some good pieces of melodies in between the docile stuff. But they are far between. Too far between for me to award more than two stars.

2 stars