THINGS UNSEEN

I already was enthusiastic about the predecessor 2017 album 'Gathering The Waters', and yeah, this yet is another prolific album delivered by the foursome hailing from the United Kingdom. Okay, it's still relatively new to me, but I quickly realized that this does not rank behind at least. The compositions even are a tad more varied and tricky, I would say. Takes some time. Entertaining progressive rock with some symphonic leanings. Occasionally you can smell some Spock's Beard, IZZ, Echolyn or Big Big Train references, but hey, they are very good in what they are doing. It looks like 'Things Uneven' does not have a concept behind, except that you won't make it too complicated, if you simply will take quite diverse things in real life as a model.

Some other musicians are guesting here, making the whole thing richer. Just take the charming ballad Halcyon Day which sees strings and flute support a lot. The fantastic The Deplorable Word shows various moods, partially in a heavier outfit, though alternating with a charming atmosphere again and again. Stunning piano and guitar solos as well expressive vocals on top. And then, consisting of different stages, the extended Celebrity suite comes as the album's ne plus ultra of course, where a bassoon is nicely supporting the rhythm work. Superb album! Another must have concerning your well assorted prog collection.

An album that I will not be reviewing song by song because I don't want to waste my time getting to know this album any more than I already do. It is full of very competently performed, wittily lyricized, compositionally sound music that conveys nothing new to me either sonically, melodically, or stylistically. It feels so familiar--so much like so many other artists past and present--most of it crossover music feeling as if it came out of the classic rock of the late 1970s and early 1980s--like so many rock bands of that time that respected the earlier prog artists who were now being relegated to dinosaur status and cut out bins and whose sound was founded in the sonic discoveries and innovations achieved by those "dinosaurs." Could be STYX, TOTO, AMBROSIA, Tom Powers, Van Halen, The Little River Band, Billy Joel, Echolyn, The Flower Kings, Sanguine Hum, Jack O' The Clock, and Abel Ganz. These guys are probably great pop song writers who just want to do a bit more. I wish them all the best. Who knows, we may hear them issuing a Top 40 hit soon!