ATAVACHRON

This is another Holdsy disc I have a devil of a time with, again mainly because it's soooo screamingly synth-drenched and rather dated-sounding in an obnoxiously 1980's sort of way, rather hard on the ears. What doesn't help is the excessively glossy digital production and the over-reliance on digital electronics.

However, there are some good standout tracks like "Funnels" (featuring some beautiful chord-melody work from Allan), the title track and "Looking Glass", a beautifully complex and yet melodic piece featuring Allan's one-time musical employer Tony Williams playing his butt off!

The rest left me very cold though. "Dominant Plague" and "All Our Yesterdays" are definitely HIT THE SKIP BUTTON kind of tracks, suffering from very typical 80's mechanical drone tendencies ("--Plagues") and a rather severe case of disjointedness and lack of clear direction ("All Our Yesterdays"). ""Non Brewed Condiment" fulfills the "barn-burner" function quite nicely, but that obnoxious Synth-Axe makes it so hard to sit through. "Mr Berwell" just seemed to lack any real substance, more like a "going through the motions" neo-symph-prog exercise that just doesn't catch fire.

Thankfully, Allan has done far superior albums to this one, it has its moments but for the first-timer, don't start here!