THE ENDLESS LOOPING GAME

This is progressive rock - it changes throughout. It's a bit psychedelic, a bit neo prog, a bit prog metal maybe with just a touch of RIO! It is a concept album about the repetitive nature of daily life. The Endless Looping Game is a great title for an album. Don't most of our lives seem an endless looping game? Why are we wasting our lives away sitting in offices? Time is passing us by. We should spend more time on important things, such as the music.

"Awake With a Shock" is 2 minute electronic instrumental. It's a mellow laid-back start to the album.

"What is Life?" starts with pounding heavy guitars and spoken chorus. This is interspersed with smoother verses. The second half of song is spacey keyboards and sound effects. The song ends with angelic sounds that sound like some kind of revelation with a weather forecast imposed over the top of the music just to highlight how mundane everyday life is.

"Monday" starts with a vocalist that sounds bit like Madonna! It is a pleasant-sounding song with a nice tune. The male vocals that follow remind me of the vocals of neo-prog band Jadis. The lyrics are about the money-oriented nature of today's society. The song finishes off with a guitar solo in the mold of Dave Gilmour.

"Blow Things Up!" is a song about a Tuesday and what a Tuesday was selected for this song - Tuesday September 11th. It's an angry song with heavy guitars, angry spoken vocals and police sirens. It finishes with a heavy guitar solo in a similar vein to O.S.I.

"Logging On" starts with a repetitive bass line and is instrumental up to 3 minute mark. It's a song about Wednesdays - "2 more days until we live again".

"Downcast" is exactly what it says. It starts slow and sad and but gets slightly heavier later.

"Thursday Morning Jogger" is an 8-minute laid-back psychedelic instrumental that has a little rest in the middle, just like a jogger!

"Helix" is my favourite track on the album. It's fast and has a much happier feel than the rest of the songs. This must be the Friday song although the word "Friday" is not mentioned specifically in the lyrics!

"Twilight" is another instrumental but in a different vein. This first half is a Dave-Gilmour- style guitar-led piece with spacey keyboards. The second half loses focus somewhat with its spacey keyboard sounds and lack of rhythm.

"The Endless Looping Game" has lyrics that say that it is not just our daily week that is an endless loop but the whole of history. It starts off mid-tempo but about halfway through gets heavier.

"Randy and the Gogzies" starts off as a children's lullaby that turns into laid-back psychedelic music. It has lyrics about the adventures of Randy and his Super Morphing Tractor in Beirut and Berlin. It finishes with the lyrics "Each one thought the other cursed with some perverted sin. God's balancing act saw to it that neither one would ever win", which must be an observation of the never-ending state of war in the world. The song (and album) finishes with spacey noises. This seems to be a disappointing end until you realise that the end loops back onto the beginning and the album itself is an endless loop. How very post-modern!

I can feel the influence of Pink Floyd in a lot of songs, which have a philosophical, mid- tempo and melancholy feeling to them. All in all though, this album packs in a bit of everything and it's certainly progressive. The concept of the album and the lyrics will strike a chord with most of us. If you think that modern music isn't progressive anymore or you want something a bit different, give this album a try.