OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INFLUENCE (LIMITED EDITION)

What could one expect from this project? Well, a look at the musicians could help. Mike Portnoy, the drummer of Dream Theater, Kevin Moore who also was a member of Dream Theater once but now has his own project running (called Croma Key), Sean Malone the well known Stick player, he also participated in Gordian Knot and Jim Matheos, the guitarist from Fate's Warning. So the main influence should be, refering to the members, metal. Well, that's true but not solely. What you get is a mixture of progressive metal, Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree. Maybe it's also important to mention that Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree is also features on this album. He does the vocals for "shutDOWN".

The general sound shows an slight electronic approach due to some featured computer effects and included voices. I think that O.S.I. is quite interesting and worth checking out. Especially if you like the above named bands. In general I'd say that the instrumental songs are slightly better but also the rest is interesting. O.S.I. has a sound wich is not so wide spread, actually I know no other band with a similar sound. As danbo said, the bass is mixed too far in the background but Malones stickplaying could still be heard on several songs. Sometimes he even takes over the melody work for a short time or gets really loud (Dirt from a holy place, The new Math). But most of the time Portnoy's drums seem to drown the bass completely. Portnoy really provides a great performance (as usual) but in general his drumming is too loud on this record. I think it's a pity that the album is so short. The bonus material is interesting. A cover version of Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the heart of the sun" and a 17 minutes instrumental wich features short passages of the original songs of the regular album, quite cool. The video footage is ok but gets boring after some time. The problem is that Portnoy is a freak of filming and taping his sessions, you get to see mostly him recording his drum parts...

So O.S.I. is an interesting project and I reall liked it but I think 3 stars are the perfect rating. 4 Stars would be too much for this rather short pleasure. If you like Dream Theater, Chroma Key, Porcupine Tree or Pink Floyd you should check out O.S.I. it's no waste of money but there are better bands and projects, also by the featured artists. IF you want to buy this album take the limited edition because it provides bonus tracks, the normal album is, like mentioned above, rather short.