PTS

What appeared as only a blurry potential in ''Nightlines'' eventually becomes reality with ''Tides'', as PTS return with a much stronger, inspired and atmospheric album, keeping their strong JADIS stylings but adding also some great PALLAS, CLEPSYDRA and EGDON HEATH vibes into the mix.The result is an album of decent songwriting, great lead guitars, explosive solos and more evident keyboard/piano parts, always with a minor role, but delivered in an inspiring way.De Haan prooves to be a great singer within the genre and the compositions finally show some great passion, energy and healthy dynamics with some trully memorable stuff.The overall style remains pretty unoriginal but the new material written by the band contains good yet easy-going arrangements with heavy doses of grandieur and a fair number of breaks.

Straightfoward, atmospheric and passionate Neo Prog is the proposal of PTS in ''Tides'' and the mass of prog listeneres should give it a chance despite the lack of trully adventurous moments.Recommended.

No surprise that the band struggled to find a decent contract to sign, as the music of PTS on this debut is one of the less risky, pretty secure and straightforward Neo Prog albums from the 90's, though the progressive influence is quite evident.The production has this 80's SAGA feeling of Pomp/Arena Rock bands and the vocals are a perfect suit for a Hard Rock/AOR outfit.The music is pretty much in the vein of JADIS, decent guitar-driven Neo Prog with less care on the keyboard work and emphasis on groovy tunes with a dynamic rhythm section along with catchy choruses.All tracks follow the simple bridge-chorus-bridge type of songwriting, making PTS one of the most accesible bands of the style, though not all melodies are particularly memorable.On the other hand the vocal arrangements are nice, if you skip the less interesting side of the voice, while Van Kruistum's guitar offers plenty of great riffs and solos and ends up to be the highlight of the album.The couple of ballads contained in ''Nightlines'' are totally uninspired and without any kind of emotion, simply filling some of the CD's capacity.''The Pain Underneath'' though is a fantastic track, which just makes the rest of the album pale in comparison.

Followers of easy-listening Neo Prog with a pompous touch in the vein of JADIS, MYSTERY or SAGA might find moments of joy with ''Nightlines'', but I am afraid that is exactly as far as this album's value go.

I can imagine they wanted to produce it no matter what, not only because of the writing efforts but also because they must have known this was going to be good material. Tides was where the style was concerned a true neo prog album but with Campaign they went up the heavy road. This was very obvious in tracks like Firing Line, Blood and Campaign. Along with Last Campaign we are also talking about my favourite tracks of the album.

Compared with Tides this album really rocks and I was impressed PTS could pull off something like this. Because I like this style far better I reward this effort with 4 stars.

I'm not fully informed about this band because I always thought Tides was the debut of PTS but in the discography it appears there was already an album in 1992. I must have missed it in the early nineties because I never saw it anywhere. Tides always gave me the impression that PTS were better songwriters than performers because some of the songs on this album are really good compositions but when I play the disc I just can't get enthusiastic. It will also have to do with the production because the sound is a bit thin.

The album starts off with three nice songs before the almost epical titletrack takes its turn. This is one of the better compositions of the album. PTS is also a band with an emotional singer, at least his voice sounds that way. It's very obvious on Valerie, Island and Waiting which are the other highlights of this album. The other songs are acceptable but not really groundbreaking.

So all in all a few plus points and some downsides as well for this nice album but no more than nice I would say. 3 stars for this.