SUBSPACE RADIO

It is courageous to publish a bands debut album self. And produce it self as well. The band must really have confidence in themselves. And why shouldn't Subspace Radio have! Great playing and good singing. Experienced team work. This could be a great album and actually there are many good moments in it.

If you should name a band which influence can be heard it would be Rush. And that can be heard in the fact that the songs are a bit monotonous and that arrangements are such that all play all the time. It becomes a bit boring and exhausting. But if you like songs with sustaining soundspaces and steady rhythms this just might be music for you. With the critics I don't mean that this is a bad album. No, not at all. Not only is this good, this would be a good addition to any prog collection. Therefore I give it 3½ and round it upwords.

This Finnish debut album didn't raise much interest on me. I listened to it only twice and will now forget it right afterwards. I spotted it when I was searching progressive rock from the library database, seeing that it has just one review here. True, you can hear the obvious RUSH influence (80's). And true, it all gets very monotonous and boring. All the tracks are in more or less the same tempo, with the same thickness of sound carpet continuing on and on. No versatility, no songs that somehow would raise above others. Of course they could improve by getting to know them better - but I doubt it. The first two tracks had some effect, but to listen the album through was really getting dull. Nevertheless, I wish these guys the best of luck and hope that they find their right audience and most of all develop as song writers - as players they do have potential to grow bigger. Lyrics were quite the same all the way, nothing memorable, using images like an empty land and open skies.

The album starts with ambience sounds resembling Rovert Fripp's 1990's solo droning, but as the music rises from it, the real characteristics of this group are presented. The sounds are dominated with heavy guitar riffs, clean keyboards and really ace drumming. From the progressive rock groups I have so far heard, this music resembles the most like 1980's and 1990's Rush: The guitar playing style, way of drumming, supporting clean keyboards, arrangements and feeling of the songs, I even hear some passages which resemble some sequences of the songs of referred group (like main rhythm of "Confrontation" song and Rush's "Hyperspace" section of "Natural Science"). Also other Finnish groups like Ageness and Prime Mover have some similarities with this; Not too eccentric approach, emphasizing positive feeling, heavy guitar riffs, detailed arrangements, good compositions and professional musicians. If you like more straightforward riff construction with supporting synth effects, and heroic sounding melodies with fine instrumental arrangements and virtuosic playing abilities, this might be worth checking from the country of thousand lakes. It did not fit totally to my personal musical taste, but anybody liking specially this kind of music might easily flip in additional stars to his or her review. Here the lack of personality and imagination did not compensate the amount of evidently fine composition, arrangement and performing skills.