THE OCTOPUS

I've made no secret for my love of this band which started for me with their 2005 EP "The Astronaut Dismantles HAL". I finally found their debut some time after that and was blown away by what I heard. It's still my favourite album from this Manchester, England trio. "Insider" the second album was great but not as good as the debut.The second album wasn't exactly a positive experience for the band as they had 3 months to write and record it for the label they were on."Octopus" is the complete oposite as the band took 3 years to complete this ambitious double album. In an interview I read recently in "Classic Rock" magazine with guitarist / vocalist Sel Balamir he tells us how he holed himself up for a year and taught himself how to finsish the record. He says he never wants to spend 3 years on a recording ever again but in the end feels it was worth it for this their magnum opus. At one point in the interview he says laughing "We're not a Prog band". It's amazing to me how the media have brainwashed a whole nation into thinking that Progressive music is lame and to stay clear. I think that attitude is starting to change thankfully but even Steven Wilson for years tried to distance himself from Prog. Now he embraces it. Some never stopped like Robert Fripp and obviously many fans of Progressive music. So okay this isn't a Prog album.You can say it it but it doesn't make it true because this is Prog people ! And it's a concept album (haha).

Sel talks about the concept. "The Octopus signifies a mechanism of existance.The whole project exists somewhere between rock music, philosophy and creative writing. Part of it's about randomness and everything descending into the entropy of information and ... it all sounds very wanky when I talk about it. That's why I wrote it all down,to make it more self-evident". They gave a 70 page hardback book with the first pre-sold 1,500 cds describing the concept.Yeah this isn't Prog at all (haha).

Anyway as far as the music goes it's fantastic but i've said it before, i'm not into concept albums, especially double concept records. Regardless this is a 4 star record but it could've been 5 stars if it was pared down to one cd with the best tracks on it. Still this is a definite highlight for 2010 and close to being a top 10 for that year. Heck maybe in time it will become a top 10 afterall there's a ton of music on here to wade through.