ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

If you ever needed further confirmation that Discipline are the latter-day Van der Graaf Generator and Matthew Parmenter is their Peter Hammill, look to the way he's followed Hammill's mid-1970s game plan with his solo albums: whilst credited to him, to a certain extent they come across as simply another facet of Discipline, with various members of the band (drummer Paul Dzendzel this time) guesting to turn out the material and the general musical style not falling too far from the Discipline tree.

At least, that's how it was on his previous two albums. All Our Yesterdays is still in a broadly prog mode, but finds Parmenter in a quieter, more contemplative mood than he usually is either on the bombastic epics of Discipline or on his prior solo albums. It's still recognisably part of the expanded Discipline sonic universe - look, he's even wearing his mime makeup on the front cover - and the sort of piano-focused torch songs he deals in here don't want for precedent, but this is the first time we've had a whole album in this mode. At points when wild synthesisers break out I am reminded of some of the solo work of John Grant of The Czars, since this occupies a similarly emotionally raw space.