NOT AS GOOD AS THE BOOK

Not As Good As The Book is a hard album to rate. I understand some reviewers reservations about this CD. It´s simply not as powerful and inspired as A Place In The Queue. But I think it´s unfair to expect always something as appealing and innovating as someone´s previous masterpiece every time he puts out a new work. People are not machines to produce such things. So I tried not to be too hard: after all, I became a fan of their entire discography up to now.

Ok, to album itself: it´s still a three star efford, although I find it to be not as pleasant to the ears as their earlier stuff. Actually it depends much on which mood you´re in the day you chose to hear it. This is specially true for the first CD. The second one, filled only with two massive epics, is actually better and smoother than the first. But I don´t think any song here is bad. On the contrary. It seems to be the classic case of not chosing the right track list. Maybe. Still, it is far better than most of what is putting out as prog by most moderns groups.

There are some line up changes too: I knew that piano player Sam Brown would be gone by this time, but Jakko Jaszczyk´s inclusiong as the new guitarrist surprised me. He was in the 21st Century Schzoid Band and brought in some different, KC´s influenced guitar lines, that simply just seem not to go as smooth as the excellent and more melodic Krister Jonsson used to. Jonsson´s style is very similar of that of TFK´s Roine Stolt, and this is the guitar sound that really works with the kind of music The Tangent asks for. On this part the sound changed not for the better. A real shame.

Not As Good As The Book is a transitional album, so it is also no surprise it is a bit uneven. Not bad, but not essential in any way. Three stars is a good measure.