AFTER THE BATTLE

Altough "After The Battle" is a nice album, I disagree with 5 stars reviews because IMHO it's far from a masterpiece. PLACKBAND sounds to my ears as a good neo progressive band, but full of neo cliches and with notorious MARILLION -era Fish- similarities (in fact, one of the best tracks -the emotive "Sign of the Knife"- seems to be extracted from MARILLION "Script...", and the vocalist seems to sing like Fish).

Beyond the above mentioned song, another high point is the second homonymous track, with the Mellotron strong presence. Precisely, the use of this beloved prog symbol makes a positive difference between PLACKBAND and most of neo prog bands, but it isn't enough to build a great piece of art.

The rest of "After The Battle" is conventional (but nice) neo prog, even with some commercial hints. A good album, very interesting mainly for MARILLION fans, but nothing special.