VISITOR

This was taken from my review over at Discogs, just shortly after I purchased this in 2012, and my opinion of this hadn't budged one bit:

A space rock masterpiece waiting to be discovered! O-Head is a Dave Hendry project, he has several projects of varying styles. Visitor is the latest in a series of O-Head releases, this time he receives more outside help than ever before, even real drums on occasions, and it shows. It sounds like O-Head might end up a real band, like Porcupine Tree. Anyways, this stuff is truly up your alley if you enjoy groups like Ozric Tentacles, Tidal Flood, Quantum Fantay, Hidria Spacefolk, and the likes. "Kull" might fool you into thinking this is going to be symphonic progressive rock, sounding a bit like the '70s French band Pulsar circa The Strands of the Future, with sampled Mellotron choirs (Hendry never used a real Mellotron, apparently a Roland JV 1080 with expansion pack), but with the next cut, "Alluvial Morte" it's in more familiar space rock territory. This piece reminds me of early Porcupine Tree because there are vocals from Al O'Kane who remind me of Steven Wilson. Much of the rest is first rate space rock, with the occasional techno moves, particularly the title track. I also love the presence of the ney flute on a couple of the cuts, courtesy of German-born Maren Lueg, her ney playing reminds me a lot of John Egan's ney playing in the Ozrics. Generally she plays in more traditionally inclined Middle Eastern music ensembles, but I wondered if she's heard Ozric Tentacles, and felt if John can play ney in space rock, so can she. Don't know. "Jagged" is a strangely out of place piece, with metal guitar riffs, then suddenly the piece mellows into spacy psychedelic territory, but then ends with those metal riffs again. Does that mean that Dave Hendry might end up with a metal project? There's even one cut that starts off with that same bass synth that you've heard on the Ozrics' Spirals in Hyperspace and The Floor's Too Far Away (helps that Hendry uses Novation synthesizers like Ed Wynne).

This stuff is begging to be discovered, truly some of the finest space rock I have heard in a long time. If you don't know O-Head, Visitor is a great place to start!

And it's true, everything I meant. It's clearly a highlight of Mr. Hendry's career, as far as I'm concerned.

Here's a quick quiz for all you prog-heads out there... What band is synth dominant, has a strong bass & percussion presence, incorporates ney flute accompaniment, uses track names like Alkivial Mode, Utep, Kull, Manu, and the band's name begins with the letter "O"? Ozric Tentacles? No. OHEAD! At least on this album...

Sure, Ozric Tentacles sounds can be found, in small part, throughout OHEAD's albums, but on this album, the rhythms, sounds, and compositions are often indistinguishable from the Ozrics. Some might say that is a bad thing, but I don't necessarily agree because the homage is done so well, and the Ozrics (IMHO) have become somewhat stale with age and deteriorating lineup. The sounds herein are new, fresh, and reflect the Ozric Tentacles at their (earlier) finest, yet they still have the OHEAD flavor.

And better than that, this is the first OHEAD album that really sounds like a full-on band, rather than a multi-instrumentalist with guest musicians for embellishment. In fact, there are some truly sublime parts of this album that, if combined consistently within and across multiple tracks, would yield a really killer album. I'm talking about synth (of course), ney flute, sax, a real drummer, airy vocals, and guest guitarists -- all together, all contributing at the same time as a band, all trading leads. How cool that would be!

This is an easy 4-1/2 stars (unfortunately rounded down to 4 because we don't have halves on PA, and I use my 5 ratings very sparingly).