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to find ghosts of the past emerging from the second track "Broken Glass" I am sadly let down. This big guitar and keyboard opening settles down to a sparse drum and bass rhythm, the harmonies seem to have landed closer to their desired mark, though still somewhat lacking by the standards that the band have set in the past. The keyboards seem to capture the spirit of albums past with its big space-rock riff that runs over the non-vocal passages, but still its not the band that I remember. The lyrics are still as well crafted as ever but the music seems to have settled for the easy option of hard-hitting rock. More of the same from "Ghosts in Dreamland" and now the sudden changes of direction and movement between time signatures that worked so well on the earlier albums seem contrived and clumsy. None of these first songs are in any way bad, they remind me of Ghostdance a band that moved from Goth to pop-rock and released only one great album and that's fine by me. I guess that when any band moves away from the sound that you first noticed them for it takes a while for to adjust to the new direction, I just feel that three songs in and I have been listening to what in the pasted would have ended up on the cutting room floor as it were.

Then it happens, "Heart Life". An acoustic guitar leads in, reminiscent of the first All About Eve albums mellower moments, recorders join in reminding us that as far as we are aware, Angela Goldthorpe, flutist and recorder player, seems to have been so far absent from the recording. When Heather Findlay begins singing its almost as if they have started a new album. Her voice is spot on and the music less forced, the gaps created in the instrumental backing, even when it hits its crescendo, seem to create a bigger sound than all the over blown guitar work and power play of what has gone before. Josh's lead solo is back to its crystal clear resonance and for this track at least he regains his title of best unknown guitar god in the world. This is what I have been waiting for, but is it enough to redeem the album, that remains to be seen.

"End of the World" continues in positive way for those trying to find the band they thought lost. Clean picked guitar and a keyboard wash back Findlay's voice, the music seminal Marillion, the voice Julianne Regan at her finest. A typically progressive style mix of gentle intricacies interspersed with powerful Josh fronted rock kicks tell the last story ever told as mans wave of technological advancement

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