ARTIFICIAL

I bought this album based on the 2010 best albums of the year chart. I had, to be honest, never heard of them before. I'm glad I did.

This is a very satisfying slab of modern progressive rock, and nice to see a band from Australia.

There is all sorts here, including probably the finest Beatles tribute and influenced track I've ever heard in Nothing Lasts Forever, some beautiful melancholy on Reflections, a satisfying epic track Tesla. In fact, my feeling listening to this album is that they draw their music from a wide range of influences, and also have produced an extremely easy album to listen to, which, in my book, is absolutely no drawback at all.

At turns melodic, at turns jazzy, certainly on Rule Of 3's, at others powerful classic rock, with a fine vocal performance from Mark Trueack.

I will certainly be exploring the other works by this band.

One of my pleasant surprises of the year, and rated 3.5 stars, rounded down to a very strong 3 stars for PA purposes, but with the emphasis on good, rather than non-essential.