THE DARK THIRD

Some albums grow on you over time, despite not impressing you at first; Pure Reason Revolution's The Dark Third is an album which has shrunk on me. I quite enjoyed it when it first came out and considered it a highlight of the New Prog trend that was causing a number of highly original and novel acts to come out of the woodwork. Pure Reason Revolution's musical approach on this album seems to consist of working in sly Pink Floyd references to otherwise uninteresting and underdeveloped songs. The nadir of the album is probably the tedious and repetitive The Bright Ambassadors of Morning, on which Pure Reason Revolution reveal that their idea of "prog" is loudly repeating a distinctive snippet from the lyrics of Pink Floyd's Echoes over and over again until the listener is sick of it. A bit of a shambles, truth be told.