UP THE DOWNSTAIR

Oh, and one final note, I am reviewing the remaster with Gavin Harrison.

What You Are Listening To: Good opening, flows great into next track.

Synesthesia: Very poppy, and repetitive. Very flowing, nice guitar solos. One of my personal favorites due to its simplicity and great vocal melody.

Monuments Burn into Moments: Another short, "filler" track, very trippy backwards piano solo.

Always Never: Beautiful song, odd vocals in verses. Nice use of electric guitar in very background. Great bass performance by Colin Edwin on this track. Nice guitar melodies. Very cool solos and riffs thrown around in the track (1:42). Good song, feels a bit long though.

Up the Downstair: Trippy opening, with great vocal (speaking part). Lots of ambient noise. Great use of keyboards on this one, lots of ambient sounds. Percussion/Bass groove starts the track of well. More ambient noise/stuff in the background. The electronic sound on this track give it most of its amazing sound. The next heavier riff is great, with the guitar dominating this part and taking over. One more heavy part (about 5 min later) and a noise build up, then it ends with ambience. My personal favorite off this album.

Not Beautiful Anymore: Another instrumental, with a very interesting quote at the start. Drums kick in with a very driving beat, then the bass and guitar layer in. Quite repetitive as most of the old PT instrumentals are. A few random stops in the middle of the riffs. Overall a solid track.

Siren: Filler, ambient sound.

Small Fish: Good, short song. Not too much to say. Simple, great vocal preformance by SW.

Burning Sky: Very driving instrumental. Great riffs. Trippy opening, thumping drum and screaming in the background. The riff that comes in sounds great for this track. Great use of keys, followed by a sick guitar solo. Then comes a half time, much heavier riff. Then the crazy breakdown, complete with heavy breathing and a clock ticking. This is a very quiet part, but follows a very nice melody. Then it kicks right back in with a very similar riff to what was being played in the begining. Guitar solo, then the heavy riff and its pretty much over. Great instrumental.

Fadeaway: Quiet song, great melody and solos. This song sounds a bit like The Sky Moves Sideways (Phase 1) too me. A quite beatuful song, very flowing. Ends in a psychedelic way. Good end to a great album.

This album overall is very good, a great psychedelic/progressive album. This is a very good addition to anyones CD collection. There are very few things that I don't like.

In fact, there is only really one turn off. It is a little boring. There are a few moments where i want it to just go to the next song, such as towards the end of Always Never. That is the only thing that stops this from being a 5 star CD, but its not that big of a deal, and its easy to get past.

Standout Tracks: Synesthesia, Up the Downstair, Burning Sky

Nasty Tracks: N/A

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