THE OVERVIEW

Judging by early reviews of this album I was expecting something a lot worse than it actually is. For the most part it's a return to 'prog' for Steven after the experimental and largely underwelming last few releases which didn't seem to have any real point. I appreciate that it would be hard for anyone to better such releases as Hand Cannot Erase and The Raven That Refused To Sing but it would be nice to know he cares at least!

The Overview is defintely for me a return to form. He is well known to be a Pink Floyd fan (perhaps his favourite band) and this has definite echoes (see what I did there) of the early spacey psyche rock of Floyd. Perhaps he 'bottles' it slightly but not that much. The opening 23 minute suite Objects Outlive Us is as good as anything he has done for 10 years. Great drumming from Russell Holzman especially oushining Craig Blundell who appears on the second piece. It feels to me that a lot more effort went into this part of the album and maybe it could have stretched to being a one album track? The second ( and only other track) is the Overview coming in at 18 minutes long. This is where the album gets slightly derailed and is a much more disjointed long song. Contains some unecessary contributions from wifey Rolem quoting off scientifiic information and then a perfunctory outro. Craig Blundell (not my favourite drummer) takes over the stool and he's about as blunt as usual. This track feels a lot more cobbled together in order to make an album.

Overall though there is enough here to justify a rating of around 8.5/10 (9.5 for Objects Outlive Us/ 7.5 for The Overview)

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