KALEIDOSCOPE

TRANSATLANTIC has become what I call 'Comfort Prog' since to my ears, it's like junk food, meaning it has little nutritional value yet it tastes very good. That's exactly what we get with their 4th album KALEIDOSCOPE which is simply a reworking of all the material they began with their very first album 'SMPTe.' I really like the first two albums and I have nothing against a supergroup doing retro prog as long as it isn't a carbon copy of what came before but at this stage fourteen years after that debut I would expect some serious developments in the musical evolution department. That is not what we get here. We simply get four prog stars resting on their laurels and setting the passion flame to cruise control and churning out very pleasant and well constructed epic suites that neither offend nor excite. They seem to have forgotten that 'progressive' by its very definition means moving forward or advancing in steady increments. We do not get any of that here. This is just doing exactly what you've already done before only changing it around a bit and adding a nice pretty package.

The one exception for me (and many others I see) is the track 'Black As The Sky' which seems to have mustered up some musical mojo to at least add one really satisfying' track to the album. Even this is hardly what I would call a major leap in any sort of development in their musical compositional approach. I give albums 3 stars for a few reasons. One reason is because an album contains a few great songs and lots of filler. Another is because the album is even but just not up to its potential possibly following or preceding a much stronger album and yet another is a perfectly good album that is simply anachronistic. If this was their debut album in 2000 it would be celebrated with the praise that their first two albums received, but these days there is so much more interesting prog to be had and this simply feels lackluster in comparison to their own past releases alone. For this release of comfort prog which is intended to give the prog masses an easily digestible package that doesn't require much effort to take in, I give a middle-of-the-road 3 stars.