Reviewed by Helen Whitall

This is the first album from an eccentric London instrumental rock band. A beautifully produced (by Paul Reeve) album of mostly string-driven pieces, this feels somewhere between Mike Oldfield and Imagined Village in style, and composer Paolo Fosso makes very creative use of varying time signatures throughout. The album begins with the full-on, middle-eastern flavoured "Suitcase War". Although a strong track in itself, it doesn't provide the album with much of an introduction or beginning, launching out on its own right away. Drums, guitars and strings are all given various intricate and epic solos over a driving bass rhythm. However, each track is unique. "Connect Four" manages to perfectly and unexpectedly blend an '80s electronic sound with Celtic-tinged folk dance. "'G' As In Gears" begins with a twinkly key introduction, before building into a complex, mechanical mesh of strings and rhythms, before a voiceover drones about the empty meaninglessness of a life centred on work for work's sake. The musical odyssey continues with the spine-tingling, Indian-influenced, "Sandstorm", the elegant and classy "Slippery Slope", rich and melodic "Satellites", and "Die Grauen Herren", with its frenetic rhythms, ticking clocks and manic laughter, before pausing for breath with "Le Temps Qui Fait Ta Rose". The simplest piece on the album, this is a smooth, classical piano and string composition in a minor key. You can almost feel falling rain in its slow, beautiful and melancholy sound. The synths and strings return for "Insert Coin", electronic sounds playfully evoking old arcade games, and the instruments sound as if they are having a lot of fun improvising up and down its unusual scales. The final track, "Bastian's Happy Flight", is a real blast from the past; it begins as a cover of the theme taken from the happy non-ending of the film 'The Neverending Story', accompanying hero Bastian's ride on a magic dragon. Strings and electronic sounds begin to increasingly improvise around and develop the theme, before it finally fades out. This is an extremely impressive collection of pieces and it would be immense fun to see it performed live.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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