THE KING OF NUMBER 33

I was pleasantly surprised with the debut "Half-Way Home" from this band in 2008 especially admiring the PORCUPINE TREE references circa "Deadwing". A nice heavy album with lots of synths giving a Symphonic feel and the vocals sounded like they were from a Crossover band. The band is the duo of Andy Ditchfield the multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, song writer and on and on while Tony Wright is our vocalist. Several guests added solos on their debut but here on the follow-up "The King Of Number 33" from 2011 they have added a drummer and lots more guests including MARILLION's Mark Kelly playing keyboards on three of the five tracks.

And speaking of songs the title track is almost 27 minutes long covering half of the album's time and is divided into six parts. Nik Kershaw sings on the closer which is a top three along with the opener and title track. This sounds a lot like their debut, they didn't vary far from that formula which is good but I do like the debut better. I think the band were more inspired and as I mentioned those PT references are cool. Ditchfield is so good at contrasting the heavy and lighter moments and as I said the synths really are prominent at times.

I was surprised at how sad that second track is "Maybe September" with the melancholy dripping from it. Violin and morose vocals along with the piano. Then it kicks in surprisingly around 4 minutes in. Again the contrasts are great and this one out of nowhere. A nice clean guitar solo 6 minutes in before the outro of piano and reserved vocals. I'm not big on the "Marty And The Magic Moose" track, those synths. The closer "Memo" like the opener is over 7 minutes and has some awesome sounding heavy sections but again contrasts abound and some interesting sounding synths too. The long title track has it all but the heavy synths and sound to start "The Hunt" might be my favourite part. So much though over the almost 27 minutes. Lots to digest and tied with the vocalist singing the title here and there.

Another solid record from these Brits. I am surprised they aren't more well known or that I didn't even remember hearing about them back then.