VISITOR

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.