GRACE UNDER PRESSURE

Switching producers from Terry Brown to Peter Henderson finds the band bringing forth their synthesiser-led sound of the era with a little more clarity than on the rather transitional Signals, and with great compositions such as Red Sector A, Distant Early Warning, or... come to think of it, pretty much any song on the album there's a lot to love on here. There's points where the band actually seem to step back a little from the synth-dominated approach of this and the last album to get back to the prog metal they'd mainly left behind - most notably on the soaring, uplifting final track Between the Wheels. I wouldn't quite put the album on the same pedestal as Farewell to Kings or Moving Pictures, but I do think it is a mild improvement on its predecessor, and probably the best album of this phase of their career (running from Signals to Hold Your Fire).