REMNANTS OF LIFE

Born out of a marriage of spacerock and prog, Remnants Of Life is Osiris The Rebirth's semi- conceptual debut, a collaboration between Dave Adams and Milo Black who had previously worked together in Hawkwind covers band Assassins Of Silence. While "guests" add essential colour - amongst them Nik Turner, Bridget Wishart, Cyndee Lee Rule and James Hodkinson - everything else is down to the core duo's skill and imagination.

After establishing spacerock credentials with a pre-flight check ["drive status steady at 57 kilobrocks"] we lift off with a full-tilt blanga instrumental riff. At this point you might be expecting a Hawkwind clone. You would be wrong ...

The album embarks on a flight path where every track has its own individual character - power- ballad [Technology], 15 minute Prog epic [End Of Something], spooky-pyramidal Ambient [Osiris, cover of the old Sphinx track], homage to Hawkwind [Siren], Ozrics-with-vocals [Starlight Scorpio], Classic Rock [Dragonslayer], or energetic instrumental [Colgate Valentine, Karmic Vortex] with glimpses of a little jazz and even classical. OTR describe these as dreams experienced during the journey; I prefer to imagine them as planets visited along the way. Whatever ...

Highlights are many, faults are few: Technology opens a little awkwardly tentative, and there is no substitute for a live drummer, though OTR's drum programming is of a very high quality. But, minor quibbles aside, Remnants Of Life was my favourite album of 2009 and I would recommend it to any spacerock-prog fan who likes a bit of variety. Oh, and they throw in some odd time signatures too!