AND WE'RE NOT HERE AFTER ALL

Here we have the third album from Overhead, A Finnish prog outfit that while new to me, has been playing about for quite some time now. Overhead has graced us with a powerful, vocal driven beauty of an album in "And we re not here after all" . A very carefully produced and engineered work worthy of a front row seat alongside many of the now popular and unfortunately somewhat formulaic new guard of progressive rock bands that have followed in the wake of No-Man, Porcupine Tree, and to a lesser degree, Coheed & Cambria.

This is a good album that draws some unavoidable comparisons to other good albums. There have been so many of them lately. A pleasant listen, a spellbinding journey, a brilliant vocalist, keyboardist, guitarist and drummer. How can you go wrong? And of course Overhead does not go wrong here.

If you like your prog sensibly arranged on your plate precisely at suppertime then this album is going to shuffle in your top 10 for sure. But if you are somewhat of a risk taker or have a penchant for the offbeat, artsy and avant-garde then "And we re not here after all" may not get your blood pumping much. My overall feeling is that this record was produced and engineered with an almost clinical precision that left little room for experimentation and/or musical hi-jinks or self-expression.

Putting my personal musical preferences on the backburner for a moment I must say that Overhead's vocalist Alex Keskitalo is probably one of the best singers I ve ever heard and I would hope to hear more from him in the future The arrangements are often beautiful and quite dramatic, and the lyrics are outstanding. All of the musicianship is precise, talented, spot on. My favorite tracks were the 12 minute Lost Inside and To the madness a song which I assume to be pt II of "A method".

"And we re not here after all"... A dramatic, pretty, and relaxing album, unfortunately quite void of quirks, surprises, or inroads.