BEYOND MAN AND TIME

RPWL began as a Pink Floyd cover band but seem to have ended up exploring an interesting Floyd-that-never-was tangent; specifically, to my ears they sound as though a bit like a version of Pink Floyd that did a somewhat better job of updating their sound and taking modern rock innovations into account during the Division Bell era. The end result is an interesting enough sound though a bit smooth and lacking in bite for my tastes - much like The Division Bell itself, funnily enough. In particular, the band's two keyboardists are a more or less constant presence in the album, rather overpowering their (actually quite good) guitarist Kalle Wallner, and when they're not layering their textures all over everything the production and mixing still doesn't do Kalle many favours - which is a shame, since I think the album would be improved if Kalle could have more chance to come to the forefront, which doesn't happen nearly enough here.