While it may be classed as Progressive, it is many, many miles away from Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Dream Theater etc.

When I first read the press release for this I became quite excited, as it promised everything I want in a Progressive album; two guys from Pittsburgh, Tedd Arnold and Bob Neft, both on vocals, guitars and keys (so you don't know who is doing what on what) with a concept album. How good is that? Then I actually listened to it – no, no, no... no, no, no, no... no, no and once again no.

Due to the fact that I thought I would be listening to something that I was very familiar with, it came as a bit of a shock to find that, while it may be classed as Progressive, it is many, many miles away from Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Dream Theater etc. To be honest, I could not make head nor tail of any of it.

Vocalist Arnold (or Neft, who knows), sounding like a cross between 'Traffic' singer Roger Chapman and a Dalek, wails on about somebody pulling strings and asks if the sky ever existed. Oh yes, and apparently he got lost waiting for the hour! The synth work on 'Fathom 3327' is more Free Form Jazz than Prog, and the track is eight and a half minutes long.

There are some pretty nifty drums at the start on 'Napalm,' but the whole thing is basically devoid of any real melody. The start of 'Master Of Distance' sounds promising, but unfortunately it doesn't go anywhere and by this point the "devoid of melody" singing was now starting to really annoy me. There are some backing vocals in this which sound much better than the main vocals, but we don't know who is doing them; this track is also almost twelve and a half minutes long.

By now you have probably got an idea of what I think of this album. There are some small parts of decent keyboards and guitar, from somebody, but this is not enough. At no point in the whole album can a real melody be found and there is nothing that sticks in your mind, other than the part where whoever it is shrieks "believe me" in the middle of 'Napalm'.

And let's be honest, nobody really does Prog Rock better than the Brits.

Andy Brailsford