SPIRALS IN HYPERSPACE

For my piece of mind, I have left a year to review the last couple of OT albums. I couldn't really enter into their music. I have always found (as some other reviewers) that it was too much of the same and that too little variety was brought into their works. My faves from the band were "Pungent" and more recently "Curious Corn" and "Swirly Termination".

So what about this one?

I was expecting the worse when I listened to the opening number ("Chewier"). I can't really stand these noises (same feel during "Plasmoid") and I could only hope that thing would improve. And it is the case.

The long title track is a remarkable mix between jazz, fusion, and metal music. Well balanced and perfectly interpreted. This track holds even some "Santana" references and gives a breathe of fresh air in terms of variety in their work. My highlight.

The same sort of feeling is brought by "Slinky", that offers some fine and soft keyboard layers, combined by an excellent bass play. It gets more upbeat for the second half. This track sounds fully jazzy (but on the soft side). The last section of this almost nine minutes track holds some brilliant guitar work to be complete. A good piece of music.

"Toke A Tola" starts as a good old ELP extravaganza! Powerful synths for a brilliant opening, but after one minute, the song turns again into a more jazz/funk affair (as a good chunk of this album actually). The song ends on a more soft and spacey beat which is quite elegant.

Some space-rock combined with Oriental mood brilliantly opens "Oakum". After a minute or so, the sound seriously leans on TD (which is not to dislike me of course) and the soft keyboards are quite pleasant. The song gets more upbeat after three minutes and the interplay guitar - keyboards is excellent. Quite dynamic and performing for a good bunch of it, the song reverts to a softer mood for the closing section. Another good moment out of this "Spiral In Hyperspace".

This album is made of several long pieces (between seven and nine minutes); during "Psychic Chasm", one can find the usual OT music: a combination of upbeat space- rock together with some electronic phantasmagoria. Average.

The closing "Zoemetra" introduces fine Oriental flavours again (this is not a new feature from the band). The percussion work is pretty good and it is a nice way to close this good album.

This work should please any jazz-rock fan; it is a good album which combines different influences. The mix could have been more in favour of space-rock than jazz to get a higher score. As such: three stars.