COLLECTIVE SPIRIT

Visual Cliff are a solid fusion/heavy prog band playing mostly instrumental music. Their latest album, Collective Spirit (2010) is a blend of well-written compositions, heavy riffs and also some thoughtful lyrics. The collaboration of Shane Lankford in vocals and Mike Florio in keyboards adds some needed variation to the instrumental riffing and smoother sections, which might have been lacking a bit on the previous albums (even though musically Visual Cliff has made even better albums than this one, check out their first Lyrics for the Living for example). As in their other projects, they do their job splendidly. Highlight tracks for me are the thought-provoking Exposed, atmospheric Sabbath and hard-rocking Sweet Conviction. Every song is a good one, and while the album lacks the "masterpiece" quality, it flows so well together productively and structurally that there is little to complain about in it. 4 stars easy.

This album and the whole Visual Cliff discography can be listened and downloaded freely in their website (trinityrecords.net). Recommended for fans of Orphan Project, Rush and Planet X.