DEVITRIFICATION

For many people, progressive rock, in the truest sense anyway, means keyboards, odd time signatures and long instrumental passages. If that is how we are to define prog rock, then this album fails that test. This band (later known as the C Sides Project) were made up of former members of Magenta (Rob Reed even apparently played some kind of role in getting this off the ground) and were inspired by Rush (particularly early Rush apparently). However, there isn't really much of a Rush sound here to my ears. In my opinion the only real similarity would be the heavy guitars. That's not to say there isn't good music on here but to me it sounds more like Alice In Chains or some other 90s grunge or hard rock band than classic Rush. If we are going to compare it to any Rush I would say it would be most similar to their Vapor Trails album. I'm not a big fan of that Rush album maybe partly because of the lack of variety (and lack of keyboards). In my opininion, this one is maybe just as good if not better than that Rush album.

For a first release in particular, this is a good modern hard rock album with some minor prog elements. It's well done but it probably won't make anyone throw away their King Crimson or Yes albums. Maybe it will grow on me (or you). 3 stars.