PEPPER'S GHOST

When I first listened to it, Pepper's Ghost seemed to be a point where the writing team of Clive Nolan, John Mitchell and Mick Pointer, who as a trio had produced extremely effective compositions for the last few Arena albums, found itself falling into a rut. Certainly, on an initial pass, the formula this time around see,s much the same as on Contagion - fairly straight ahead neo-prog with hard rock-bordering-on-heavy metal guitar work giving things a bit more muscle and grit - but the songs were less immediately gripping to me, without a love-on-first-listen standout offering like the opening one-two-three punch of Witch Hunt/An Angel Falls/Painted Man on Contagion.

On further consideration, though, I think I was being unfair. Certainly, if you're after bombast the closing track Opera Fanatica offers plenty of that, and stylistically there are some mild differences between this and Contagion; in particular, the heavier side of the sound is dialled back (though not completely), steering Arena back towards their neo-prog centre of gravity a tad but, crucially, with new lessons learned from their stint in harder and heavier waters, so they aren't merely just returning to well-trod ground.