TO SHATTER ALL ACCORD

Matthew Parmenter did a decent job keeping the Discipline sound alive on his two solo albums, but it's still incredibly gratifying to see the band back together and sounding like they'd never been away. Some of the material on To Shatter All Accord was already fully developed back in the band's last rise to prominence in the 1990s, with Circuitry and the wonderfully megalomaniacal When the Walls Are Down having appeared on live shows from that era, as did the coda to When She Dreams She Dreams In Colour, whilst Dead City, Rogue, and the bulk of When She Dreams... seem to be shiny and new.

The structure of the album seems to be a balance between the shorter and more succinct pieces of Push and Profit (in the first three tracks) and the longer workouts of Unfolded Like Staircase (as represented by the final two tracks), though the seamless transition between Circuity and When the Walls are Down blurs the boundaries between those two songs somewhat, and on the whole all the best features of those albums are present here. Once again, Discipline prove themselves to be absolute masters at establishing atmosphere and striking the precise emotional chord they are going for. I don't mind that some of the material on here can already be heard on live albums from the earlier era of the band, because I think the inclusion of that material helps the album succeed at seeming like a natural followup to Unfolded Like Staircase, rather than the sort of reunion album where it feels like there's an abrupt discontinuity between where the band left off and the sort of material they play when they get back together.

In fact, it's one of the best reunion albums I've ever heard - much like Van der Graaf Generator's Godbluff, the fact that the main songwriter of the band was keeping the approach alive in his solo albums pays substantial dividends. Highly recommended.