DON'T PANIC

This is the debut album by a "New-Progressive band" from Utah, with a pop/new age feel, well hidden inside the track "Between the Lines", which is perhaps the most inspiring song. The guitar work is good within and the vocals as well. The rest of the album is not bad, despite of being entirely instrumental, as it never adds a diverse mood, but the output overall is not bad..

Interesting album not completely essential!!

Well, this is another vey tough call between 3 and 4 stars. I bought this album a few years ago. I had the successor Resistance is useless in my possession for a long time before I decided to buy this one as well. I was always intrigued by this band with it's own unique sound. In fact this debut was absolutely no disappointment either.

It's a short album, alas, because I can always really appreciate when you get something like 70 minutes of music for the same money as 45 minutes, simple statement but true, isn't it ? But ok as long as the 45 minutes are good enough, then that's good compensation. I think, it's really the case here ! This is very good though then I am actually talking about the last three songs on the album which happen to be the three longer ones but they are of very high quality to me. The first three are no more than a warm up I believe and because of the short total time and the fact I slightly had to overrate the other one by Kalaban (see my review there) I will round this one down to 3 stars. (3,5 it really is).

From the beggining 4 stars without hesitation for Don't panic. Kalaban is a symphonic band from USA who releases 2 albums in the early '90's. Don't panic is the first one from 1990 and a great one , at least for me. Kalaban's music has many influences like Genesis, Dream Theater but with a wider range of jazyy interplays. Anyway this album is absolute great from the first track to the last, great musicianship great vocals. I'm not agree that David Thomas is a weak singer, he fits very well in this kind of music. More than 80% of the album is instrumental so they have enough space to demonstrate their capabilitys in prog music. So an excelent deput and desearve 4 stars, quite strange but very well played.

The debut album by this group of Americans from Provo, Utah. Solid musicians performing their own interesting, very proggy compositions competently and engagingly. Definitely of the Neo Prog sub-genre.

1. "Intro" (1:49) nice instrumental album intro. (4.25/5)

2. "Between the Lines" (4:43) very pretty music over which singer David Thomas performs a nice STYX Tommy Shaw-like vocal. I don't understand the complaints over David's vocals: he does a remarkable job of hitting and holding notes, of creating catchy melodies, and conveying convincing emotion. (9.25/10)

3. "Grayslayer" (2:37) an instrumental of nice sophistication and excellent performances that reminds me a lot of the work of band HAPPY THE MAN. (4.75/5)

4. "Procyon's Demise" (9:52) some timing issues with the opening (unless they're actually trying to express the instruments in a polyrhythmic weave). Unfortunately, all of the instruments sound as if they're being generated from or feed through some fairly cheezy effects boxes or engineering console. Again, the musicianship is top notch, the composition fairly sophisticated (and without question proggy), it's just the sound that suffers (the first four minute section being the worst). The slowed down, spacey middle section that begins at the four minute mark is quite IQ-like before going slightly over toward FOCUS. The Jan Akkerman-like guitar play over the piano and synth strings is quite lovely. At 6:35 begins a bit of a tarantula rhythm by piano and percussion. The lead guitar joins in and shreds us into another section--first fast, then slowed down. Nice keyboard performance throughout even if the sound is flawed. (17.75/20)

5. "Mutants Over Miami" (12:17) almost avant/RIO in its tongue-in-cheek comic feel. Reminds me of the debut album from Uzbekestani band FROM.UZ, Overlook. Nice instrumental performances over some very sarcastic (Frank Zappa-like) music. (22.5/25)

6. "Midnight Comet Dreams" (12:56) spacey intro forming into YES-like "Machine Messiah" start, turns quickly to classical guitar finger-picking display on heavily-reverbed electric guitar. Interesting! David Thomas joins in, singing over the guitar as bass, keys, and drums join in. Switch at the chorus to a not-unpleasant, more dynamic STYX-like sound and feel. The next section, a fast-moving rock section provided to allow the instrumentalists to display their dueling skills, is okay (a step down, actually). I really like the drums and keybaord strings support here; the soli are okay (too much reverb). Back to the vocal sections for the 8th minute--the vocalist's story-telling style (and maybe the story itself) are getting a little tiring. Then a Andy Summers-type of strummed synth-guitar interlude ensues over the ninth and tenth minutes, sadly turning into a kind of blues-rock, STYX-like jam as the band slowly spews forth over the gradually speeding up music. (21.5/25)

Total time 44:08

Solid and sophisticated Neo Prog from America that could have used some better sound engineering (but feels right for the 1980s--which this came out of). There is a nice diversity of prog styles attempted here--all fairly adequately composed and performed. Sound is the main issue.

B+/4.5 stars; a near-masterpiece of progressive rock music and a fairly surprising debut album.