NOT AS GOOD AS THE BOOK

Well, this is going to be a review of a band that has moved up in my personal ranking very quickly the last year or so. A few years ago there was the stream song Up hill from here that impressed me a lot, then I bought the album The world we drive through and my admiration was increasing, next the Place in the Queue that proved this band isn't just a flash in the pan but a band with great potential.

With their latest release I think they once again prove their consistancy in quality and they might even have gone up half a level compared to their predecessor. And then I espacially mean in the overall performance. Almost every song is of very high level and I also feel they have managed to bring more variety in the sound of the separate tracks. Take the first song for instance: I never heard them do such a cathchy and accesible track before and I can say, it works really nice with them. I recently watched an interview with Andy Tillison on Youtube and the first few tones of A crisis in midlife were used there in the introduction of the interview on Prog Radio (I can recommend to view it on youtube by the way (tags: Morow or The Tangent), it's an interesting interview) and this didn't surprise me because it's almost poppy, I mean they could hit the charts with it if they wanted to. But actually I would regret that because I hope they will stay fully progressive and not try to go too commercial. On the other hand, that's my personal feeling about it, The Tangent should do whatever they want of course.

Are most of the songs much more accessible than the ones on their previous albums ? No, they are not. A crisis in midlife is more or less the exception, it's just the title track that can be called a catchy song also but the rest of the tracks are at least as progressive as we used to know of The Tangent. But if I have to be more specific about this: I think you can call disc 1 the diverse one and disc 2, the epical disc, the most progressive of the two and this second disc is actually a tough nut to crack, I have to say.

On their previous album I was very fond of the two epics (In Earnest and the title track) and I really could get into them quite easily but with these two it's a lot harder. I heard them at least 5 times now but I couldn't get a grip on them yet. Does this mean they are less ? Absolutely not, they could even be better but I have the feeling I can say that after 15 or 20 times listening. I only know they are very diverse tracks, both with very nice moments, both starting and ending quietly with all kinds of things happening in the middle part. And still they are different in many ways. It just shows the versatility of the bands composing abilities. And that could even be their biggest quality of all. Their compositions are excellent, the execution equal in standard, it's just the vocals that will never be the biggest quality of The Tangent, unless of course they hire a great vocalist. I believe Tillison does most of the singing on this doubler, I know Manning of earlier releases, they have more or less similar voices but even though their singing is not annoying, they will never reach top level either.

What is going to be the final verdict after all these statements ? Well, that isn't easy by any means. It's another tough call between 4 and 5 stars. But when I rate each track individually and make an average after that the score is some 4,3 so I will have to give it 4. Highly recommended to all proggers !