A STREET BETWEEN SUNRISE AND SUNSET

i found this a very good album, the sound quality is excellent, the musicianship is superb, every song is superbly structured though unremarkable, but i felt disappointed. the overwhelming problem i found is i couldn't stop thinking of Genesis' "Selling England by the Pound", in almost all departments - this seeemed to be the overbearing influence, almost every track is riddled with instrumental effects from the aforementioned album, with a little Pallas influence thrown in, which could be expected as it is listed as Neo-Prog, i don't know if Satellite set out to be a neo-prog group, they certainly seem to fit this description. I shouldn't be too critical as Marillion did a fine job of aping Genesis but they took it much further, they had GREAT songs, their own ideas, their own themes, instead of carving lumps off Genesis, such as on this album, they only followed Genesis' style, carving a large niche in rock history in the process. Having got that not unreasonable criticism out of the way, on to the music on this particular cd. The album opens with traffic noise from, i guess, a New York street, and the first song "the evening wind", this is one of the best tracks on the album and has some nice drum rhythms and keyboard effects, the next song "on the run", starts off beautifully and builds up, and includes very good guitar solo. "Midnight Snow" is a nice song and flows along beautifully, and "No Disgrace" has an eastern influence to the song, "Not Afraid" , "Now" and "Fight" are pleasant enough but not outstanding songs. The next track "A Street Between Sunrise and Sunset" is an interesting enough piece and has some good guitar work, it is the longest track on the album at eleven minutes, with some good keyboard and guitar solos over some complex rhythm patterns. "Children" is a short, slow song which tails off to a barely audible vocal. Overall an excellent debut album, the songwriting is good but there are many other influences apparent on here. i haven't heard their later albums and possibly Satellite may have found their own identity on these. Satellite would appeal to many Neo Prog fans, especially if the group are touring, but to an old prog fan like me there is nothing really new here on this cd at all, even for a debut album. definitely not a prog masterpiece, so i would kindly rate it at 2.5 stars - a nice enough listen, though good, but not essential.