EXIT

I like it, but I like newage too so I had to wonder about how much prog is this album. Listening to the opener, it's not much different from the 80s things of the prog-related Vangelis (at least on PA is only prog-related), even with the square waves that are a distinctive sound since Zeit.

It's unusual that on an album that's not a movie soundtrack TD release just 5 minutes long tracks, but if you listen to some of the previous masterpieces looking at the clock, you'll see that they are used to move from one theme to another inside the same track more or less every 5 minutes.

So while "Kiew Mission" can remind to Vangelis, "Pilots of Purple Twilight" is pure electronic and makes me think to the late Pete Bardens instrumental works, also because of the equipments used. I mean "Seen One Earth" as reference.

"Choronzon" doesn't seem to have much to do with Tangerine Dream. I can imagine David Sylvian in Japan's style singing on bass pitch over this track, but with Jarre instead of Japan behind. Nice to listen but the 80s are full of stuff of this kind.

The title track "Exit" could be good for a soundtrack. The slow tempo end the repetitive bass notes are a touch of old TD, but the melody comes from the 80s.

"Network 23" is a sort of smooth disco-electronic song, but if you survive to the first seconds is not so bad. Not worse than some Kraftwerk stuff of the same period, at least.

Only "Remote Viewing" has some real interest to me for its spacey sound. The rest of the album can work in background while you drive, this track seems to have been put here to ask the old fans to forgive the band for the actual direction taken. At least the first 2 minutes have a Pink Period flavour and also what follows is not too different from Froese's solo masterpieces like Aqua or Epsilon In Malaysian Pale, or from Ricochet.

To summarize, this is not completely my pot. I don't think and I don't care about how much "commercial" it is. What I can say is that it's still a good album, but doesn't add anything to what TD have already done at that times, so it fits perfectly in the definition of "Non- essential".

3 stars are rounded up.