THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS

Review # 52. This Winter Machine is a UK-based band which I discovered recently. The band is a quintet, including good and experienced musicians, which becomes rather obvious upon listening to their debut album The Man who Never Was. The album opens with the title song, a 16-minute-long suite in 4 parts, which is one of the best songs of the album, and gives to the listener a good idea about the band's style and influences. Speaking of which, the band's seems to be deeply influenced by Marillion and IQ, among other bands. (In my opinion at least). The album includes 5 songs and has a total running time of almost 50 minutes. As you can understand, all the songs are long enough. The style here is a modern and rather "polished" Progressive Rock, with beautiful melodies, interesting changes in all the songs, lots of piano and keyboard passages and beautiful guitar riff and solos. The singer has a rather high pitched voice, which is not something special, but it fits their sound well enough. I believe that it is a very enjoyable and well structured album, which I enjoy listening to a lot. My most favorite songs are The Man who Never was and After Tomorrow Comes, followed by Fractured. The Man who Never was is a perfect addition to any Prog Rock discography, and especially those who are fond of the music sub-category named as Neo Prog, will definitely enjoy it! Give it a try! My Rating would be 3.5 stars