THE GNOMON

Antony Kalugin's first album from his Sunchild project is essentially Kalugin and a wide range of guest collaborators taking us on a one and a half hour retro-prog journey, And that's exactly the problem - competently performed as it is, it's got the common problem of all too many 2000s-era retro-prog releases in the sense that it outstays its welcome. Sprawling over two discs, I feel like if it had trimmed away the filler and fat and presented us with the best 40-odd minutes of the material here it'd be far stronger.

In addition, Kalugin handles most of the vocals and unfortunately, his voice just isn't up to it. In particular, he's singing in English and it clearly isn't his first language; to be fair, his English is far better than my Ukrainian, but it's a rare vocalist who is able to sing as comfortably and naturally in a foreign language as they do in their own, and Kalugin's chops fall well short of that point.