BLUEPRINT

If you're looking for the cutting edge of contemporary prog rock, you won't find it here - but then, if you were looking for the cutting edge, you would never have been a Sebastian Hardie fan in the first place. Apart from the considerably more ragged vocals, there is nothing here that doesn't sound like it was recorded in Sebastian Hardie's mid 70s heyday - Toivo Pilt uses the same keyboards, Mario Millo has the same melodic guitar style, and the same ability to suddenly reel off a searing solo. On the downside, he still also has his sentimental pop side - most to the fore on "Art of Life", an expression of nostalgia for their past glories allied with an attempt at a profound statement on advancing age. (Mike Rudd from Spectrum covered those themes so much more thoughtfully on their recent Breathing Space EPs.) One disappointment is that Millo has reasserted his stranglehold on the compositional credits - I'm one of the rare people who preferred Windchase's Symphinity to the first two Sebastian Hardie albums, largely because Toivo Pilt asserted himself far more as a composer in the renamed band, and I found his music more interesting than Millo's.

So nothing cutting edge, just a well-captured rediscovery of the classic 70s symphonic sound. And why not?