ASTRAY

Matthew Parmenter's first solo album comes across as a means of continuing Discipline by other means - the compositional approach is very similar to that of Discipline (the shorter songs being reminiscent of Push and Profit, whilst the closing epic Modern Times is more like the material on Unfolded Like Staircase), Discipline's Matthew Kennedy guests on bass guitar, and once again the music occupies a dark hinterland between neo-prog and symphonic prog. Frankly, that's 100% fine by me. The brilliant compositions and songs on this album only underline how important Parmenter's skills as a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and frontman were to Discipline, and continue that band's spirit and experiments admirably.