THE WORLD THAT WE DRIVE THROUGH

Before I start to review this album I have to correct something in my mind. I always thought The Tangent was a true Guy Manning project. And of course he is a very important member of this band but after I read the booklet that went with the disk I saw that the music of this album was written by Andy Tilison who appears to be a member of PO90. So every credit to him then because it's mainly the music and the compositions that appeal a lot to me. He also wrote the lyrics, nothing wrong with that but I happen to be an instrumental oriented person for who the lyrics are just additional. Sorry, can't help it.

I still have to get into the debut by this band, I will do so soon but right now I can't compare it to The Music that died alone. But it was the progarchivestreamsong Up hill from here that got me interested in this band and that was a track from the debutalbum and I decided to purchase that as well. I also do have the latest and will review that one too soon. For now this is what I'm dealing with and I really love it. It's pure prog, categorized in eclectic which is not my thing but I don't consider this the best example of eclectic, I think jazz rock or fusion would be a suitable department as well. It's particularly the mood and the sound that does the job for me. It sounds really nice and could also be the perfect background music but on the other hand you could say: this music deserves better than that. At least 4 out of 5 songs are truly terrific, just the middle track (Phontosynthesis) is a little less. Like I said, it's jazzy with also symphonic elements and interesting contribution of wind instruments. Theo Travis does a really great job on this album. In fact it's no surprise two very important members of The Tangent are from PO90 because that is also very nice jazz-prog.

It just misses out on the masterpiece status to me but comes really close so I give this 4 stars, but in fact it's 4.5.