HOME AWAY FROM HOME

Elephants of Scotland's latest album Home Away From Home lays down a lot of familiar elements combined in ways that are fairly conventional but still show skill in composition. The overall vein is thoroughly neo-prog at a fairly relaxed pace, featuring electronic influences such as on the opener "Geograph," tranquil piano playing on "Full Power," a great groove on the title track "Home Away From Home," and loads of atmosphere on the closer, "Errol McSquisitor." Unfortunately, there a few things that were detractors for me, such as the vocals; while they had the right sound there was just something that sounded a tad off about the performance, like intonation that missed the mark often enough to where it felt like something didn't mesh. Apart from that, there seemed to be an overall lack of energy in the recordings, sort of a stagnant feel throughout. In the end, die hard fans of neo-prog may be satisfied but Home Away From Home may have difficulty reaching a broad range of prog audiences.