Spock's Beard
The Oblivion Particle

The next particle in the search for exotic particles within the field of physics is the oblivion particle, believed to have the properties of changing the passage of time – one might suggest it takes events that has passed and banishes them to oblivion by changing history. Kind of like what seems to happening with events leading to WW2 which seems to be starting to repeat themselves within many European countries – but that might just be down to the fact that people are stupid. Spock’s Beard is famous because of many things and the band has been around for a long while now and this Oblivion Particle is completing the dozen for them. That is impressive, their career is spanning more than two decades now and they always feel relevant.

This album has an exciting cover artwork, something that grabs the attention of the listener – it certainly peaked my interest. If you know the work of Spock’s Beard you may not be as intrigued by the music, the description I wrote for the previous album is more or less true for this one as well. It is progressive rock with all that it entails, it reminds me of what has come before, and they do not break as much new ground as they did with the previous album. But don’t make the mistake of thinking it is ordinary; they make exciting musical adventures rather than just songs. The production is excellent and the soundscape is exciting and varied, the vocalist is great, the drummer who sings Bennett Built a Time Machine also does an excellent job. One could point out though that the novelty usually heard in albums by Spock’s Beard is a little absent on this album, but one must also point out the quality of everything these guys makes.

This is a great album in any measure you want to take on it. It is strong songs, long and varied, adventurous and exciting. I think however that they could have taken the songs further and do as the most often do, take them outside the box and make something new and really exciting. I think they could have gone a little bit further, and they could have gone for some faster songs, the tempo is generally in the midtempo to low tempo ranges – they could have spiced it up with a faster song. Still, it sounds like I am complaining but I am not really doing that – I really enjoy this album but I still need to point out such things as it is my job as a critic to bring out both positive and negative aspects of an album. This album is very much on the positive side of things though it being that much alike its predecessor lessens the joy slightly.

I think any fan of music will find this album great, you have to some kind of moron not to. I recommend that anyone reading about it also take a closer look at it, it is definitely worth the time it takes to play it a few times and it grows on you for each time you play it so it is definitely worth it. It definitely ranks among the best albums of the year so far, not as good as its predecessor though but still good enough to stand out compared with almost anything released these days. I really like it.

Picking a favourite song isn’t too hard; Bennett Built a Time Machine is my absolute favourite and it stands out above the rest of the tracks, perhaps because of the different singer but I think it is just a brilliant song. The other songs are really good all of them so it will just be pointless to write song names in a row. In the end I think that we can conclude that Spock’s Beard keeps delivering wonderful music and that the one missing this album will regret it.

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