DISCONNECTED

Airbag is a Norwegian quintet that has been retracing the footsteps of Pink floyd with such confidence and creativity, that so far 2 out of their 3 albums landed on my favourites' list. Their sound is as pure as it gets, successfully mixing long and dreamy guitar solos with a slight retro rock sound made very accessible for the new-age listeners. Along the way they are reaching back to their above-mentioned masters for a lot of inspiration, and maybe even too much for the fourth time. At least that was the first thing on my mind when hearing their new album, which is, let us face it, a ripoff of their already showcased pinkfloydian ideas without a shred of innovation inbetween.

Nevertheless, Disconnected is still a decent listen, if you are just being introduced to their music. A mature band is doing what they are good at: setting the scene with some ok (albeit basic and light) neo-prog ideas stretched over 8-minute-long songs, where dreamy, held-out guitar solos are thrown at atmospheric refrains brought to us through the singer's perfectly matching voice. This was the formula for all the previous albums, and it was left unchanged for Disconnected, too. The problem is that this self-copying methodology wore out their pinkfloydian machine by now, which the band must feel too, as half of the songs do nothing but copy the already used melodies (especially from The greatest show on Earth), whilst the others try to introduce some new ones on the backbone of the above, but in a rather mellow, slowed down and overall tiring way. There are some exceptions though - 'Slave' for example manages to find its way to the listener even through its recycled ideas, and 'Returned' is also an elegant (albeit again brutally simple) closing of the album, reminding me of the finale of their first album. But as for the rest of the songs, they are way too similar not just to the previous ones but to each other also. Everything is interchangeable here, failing to make the impression of a new album, and instead sounding like a batch of deselected leftovers from a forgotten B-side album.

Funny how I was complaining in another review recently of how some bands mischoose their way of what new genre to venture into when the time for change comes, whilst here it is the lack of even trying is what bothers me. And if it is for a band that already sounds like a Pink floyd cover quintet, then I am blaming them even more for not even trying to do anything beyond "business as usual". In any case, this is not a bad listen, but can be recommended to those fans only, who have not yet worn out their copies of The greatest show on Earth. For them a next album might do the trick more, should it ever come with some more innovation, whilst for the others it is more recommended to visit the previous albums instead, to have a true taste of this brilliant band's forte.