Planetarium is the third album from Italy's The Waking Sleeper Band. While they classify themselves as a symphonic prog band, I would call this album prog-pop, in the vein of Alan Parsons Project or 1980's Genesis. While this is a well-written album and the performances, as much as they can be heard, are top-notch, this album's production is such that everything is flattened out and compressed in a very 1980's top 40 radio style, which is not the production style you want for a progressive rock album. The performances of the band are indistinguishable, with the exception of the occasional obligatory guitar or synthesizer solo or during the piano/vocal ballad Falling Eternally. The album sets out with the lofty goal of being built around the "development of astronomy and the associated worldviews and logically take the path from the views of Claudius Ptolemy to the Copernican turnaround to the general theory of relativity". Tracks like Relative, Astral Mathematics and The Earth Is The Center actually remind me the 1987 album from Wetton & Manzanera. They are quite good, but really suffer a "dated" sound. Like their earlier albums the cover lists the band's name and the album's title followed by "performed by Maurizio Antognoli" which, to my mind explains much about the production - the only performer who "heard" is Antognoli, the others are lost in the production. The problem here is that without any "stand-out" performances and a very dated sound, this album, while quite good, is not in any way memorable. *** David Carswell Where to buy? |
