THE LOST ART OF TIME TRAVEL

Wow!!! Just Wow!!! This is a terrific album!!! All fans of 1970's progressive rock must hear this album. That is your sound byte. Go ahead and print it. I should really end my review right there because that is all that you really need to know. Let me just say that I enjoyed my first couple listens to this album so much I was inspired to do something I haven't done in quite some time and that is write a review. This album is so good and I want everyone to know it and thus that is why I am writing this. I am really not qualified to describe this album in any other way, but being a prog rock fan and a member of this website I suppose that I will continue anyhow.

Presto Ballet guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof is also the guitarist for heavy metal band Metal Church, a thrash metal band that I used to really like with their first few albums but I have since lost complete track of. I have a copy of Presto Ballet's debut album Peace Among the Ruins, which I picked up because it was released on the InsideOut record label, of which I am a huge fan of their stable of artists. I remember listening to that album and thinking that it was good, but it really didn't stand out as all that memorable to me. Recently in the forums, Big Boss from ProgRock records announced that they were trying something new with a record of the month club. I figured that this was a good deal since the price per CD was good, and I also really like the stable of artists on Prog Rock Records too. Anyhow, the first CD that they sent out was Presto Ballet's The Lost Art of Time Travel. My expectation before playing this was that hopefully it would be good but that I'll probably play it once or twice and set it aside to be picked up and played from time to time when the mood strikes, or it just happens to come up in the rotation scheme. Boy was I in for a surprise. Did I tell you that this album is terrific and that you just have to hear it? It was so good that I pulled out Peace Among the Ruins for the first time in awhile to give it another listen. It was better than I remembered, but it still didn't have the wow factor of this CD.

I suppose that this might fall under what some forum members derisively call retro prog because of how much it harkens to the glory days of progressive rock, but when something sounds this good it really shouldn't matter. There is a large helping of hammond organ and mellotron and synths and piano and bass pedals. Not to mention the fact that the band leader, Vanderhoof, is a guitarist by trade and thus there is some excellent guitar playing as well. There has been some significant turnover in the band from the first album. As already mentioned, Kurdt Vanderhoof returns as well as singer Scott Albright. It could just be, but on the first album Scott Albright sang like a metal singer and although his voice was good it wasn't necessarily distinguishable from other metal singers. I don't know if this makes sense or not, but on this album, he sings more like a rock singer. His voice seems cleaner to me and is more enjoyable to listen to. In addition to these two, the band also have a new bass player, drummer, and all purpose keyboard player (meaning he plays synths, keyboards, mellotron and hammond organ). All three of them are splendid additions to the bands sound.

Thank you to Prog Rock Records for sending me this CD. I really do believe that this is a modern day progressive rock masterpiece and that it is an essential listen for all fans of the glory days of progressive rock.