ABOVE CIRRUS

I'm a huge fan of Pure Reason Revolution and I've seen them live a couple of times. I like supporting the bands that I enjoy listening to and it made me sad to hear of their break-up after their third album. I was very happy to hear they'd regroup and record another album a few years later, even if my expectations were low due to the quality of their third album. However, they pulled out all the stops and released Eupnea, which I loved. It was lovely hearing PRR successfully recapture the essence of The Dark Third and push it.

On the other hand, we have Above Cirrus. The album is a swing and a miss and there's very little to recommend here. Annoyingly, PRR seem to be, once again, trying to gain ground in the alt-rock scene instead of sitting comfortably where they excel - the prog-rock scene.

The album is plagued with half-baked ideas that should've been fleshed out or at least injected with a little more passion. There are very few memorable riffs or vocal harmonies, and the sound textures and instrumental sections are dull.

PRR has the bad habit of burying good or even excellent riffs under noise or bad production, which is evident in Our Prism. What's wrong with crystal-clear, heart-stopping riffs?

New Kind of Evil is mid-tempo for most of the song and it drags on for a while. This is another feature of this album - songs that should've been shorter have been elongated, but since there's no actual content there it just feels like the song never ends.

Phantoms is another bad decision. PRR have tried the pure techno thing a few times and it rarely works. In fact, it's one of the reasons for their downfall upon release of their third album. Give this pure techno stuff up already, a whole song of it doesn't work with your fan base.

All I have to say about Cruel Deliverance is that it is exactly like New Kind of Evil - boring and overlong.

Scream Sideways is the one song on this album that I like. It's got an interesting structure and some cool sound textures. The breaks are also very cool. That funky and spaced-out section is my favorite thing on this album. Having said that, it's not as fleshed-out as it should be and ends abruptly. I wanted more!

Lucid has some cool moments, but nothing to write home about.

On the whole, it seems this album needed to sit in the oven for a little longer before recording began and it does seem like PRR needed to put a little bit more passion into it. Better riffs, catchier vocal harmonies and lines, and funner instrumental breaks filled with content would've definitely helped. Here's hoping the next one will hark back to The Dark Third/Eupnea again.

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