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By now we all know that some years ago it was Mike Portnoy who launched
the idea to create a new project featuring his buddy Jim Matheos.
Because the legendary Fates Warning guitarist was too busy at the time
Roine Stolt came to the rescue and so Transatlantic was born. Would
Transatlantic have sounded the way it did should Matheos have been free
right away ? Noone will tell. Surely OSI sounds less melodic than
Transatlantic and also borrows less from the authentic progressive
heritage. Instead you get some powerful prog’n roll with a very
contemporary feel often delivering the right amount of indie flavoured
material MTV kids and alternative radiostations love to death.
With the inclusion of ‘old’ Dream Theater partner Kevin Moore the music
of OSI not only showcases Kevin as the leadsinger but also delivers a
fair amount of inventive keyboard sounds sometimes adding textures
flirting with semi-industrial patches and often being closer to Nine
Inch Nails than ‘vintage’ melodic prog. Maybe in that context the
material on “Office of Strategic Influence’ gets closer to Moore’s very
own Chroma Key mixed with dashes of latterday Porcupine Tree. PT leader
Steve Wilson even guests on ‘shutDOWN’ whilst there are bits and bobs
all over the album which could easily have fitted on “In absentia”. If
you were waiting for yet another dose of percussive fireworks then I’m
afraid OSI is not a new Liquid Tension Experiment as Portnoy rather
sticks to ‘plain’ drumming whatever ‘plain’ means in the Portnoy
encyclopedia ! Also Matheos doesn’t deliver rousing solo’s but offers
loud guitar riffs as kind of a backing tape for Moore’s often masked
vocals.
No doubt fans of current Porcupine Tree material will love this album to
bits simply because it contains that same approach melting acoustic and
electric patches in order to create something new. All along these lines
Portnoy surely uses his knowledge of ethnic percussion to give the music
an original twist. ‘When you’re ready’ is a prime example of how
experimental sounds entertwine with a rather laidback rhythm. But it’s
all systems go during ‘Horseshoes and B-52’s ‘ when both Portnoy and
Gordion Knot bassplayer Sean Malone hit their respective instruments
until their hands begin to bleed. Throughout this song also some
backward tapes are used to make the sound even fuller. ‘Head’ fuses
headbanging moments with softer passages through which I can hear the
sound of a distant koto. Again the percussive patterns steer the song
into a completely different direction even flirting with ambient music.
With an acoustic guitar as backbone ‘Hello, helicopter’ is probably my
favourite on the album as it once again gets so very close to authentic
Porcupine Tree with Portnoy introducing some tribal rhythms which go
ever so well with the rest of the material. I simply melt once that
superb sound of the Fender Rhodes enters taking turns with synthesizer
tweaks. In honour of Porcupine Tree none other than Steve Wilson himself
delivers the vocals (and lyrics) for the lengthy ‘shutDOWN’ eptitomizing
the many faces of Wilson. So once again soft and hard elements shine
back to back giving way to ambient soundscapes where Fender Rhodes
battles it out with Matheos’ loud riffs. Add to that the thundering
drumsound of octopus Portnoy and you surely know you’re in for a treat
with this little gem. We have to wait for the instrumental ‘Dirt from a
holy place’ before we witness the true Jim Matheos delivering kind of a
Fates Warning outtake doom atmosphere included. Jim’s wonderful solo is
relieved by Kevin Moore and Sean Malone who in turn put their respective
instruments in the picture. Kevin’s hoarse, slightly uncertain vocals
are the focal point of ‘Memory daydreams lapses’ whilst it’s Sean
Malone’s bass which really set the pace here. By means of Eno-like
textures the song evolves towards industrial cut-and-paste passages. The
album closes with the rather short yet poppy ‘Standby (looks like rain)’
which might just be the album’s perfect single choice if only it was a
little longer. So instead of an edited version maybe OSI should hit the
studio once again and add another chorus ?
In all OSI is not the kind of band Dream Theater and Fates Warning fans
the world over probably were expecting. The predictable path into
forming yet another LTE or Transatlantic has wisely been left aside.
Instead the threesome Matheos, Portnoy and Moore have started from
scratch without copying their past in order to deliver something fresh,
new and exciting, a style they will most certainly develop as time goes
by. |
