Tinyfish United Kingdom

"This is the debut CD from the self-styled "world's smallest prog rock band" and very good it is too. Starting off with some spoken words from Rob Ramsay ("black cold dogs noses"), Motorville kicks in the album with a fine guitar riff over some great drumming from Simon Godfrey. "Fly like a bird" takes things down a notch or two and features a brilliant guitar solo. "Nine months on fire" picks things up again and is the start of a succession of excellent tracks which take us through to the Eleanor Rigby-like "Sundried" which reprises a theme from the chorus of the earlier "Too high for low company". The next track is the "epic" of the album - "All hands lost" at just over 12 minutes - and the album concludes with the eponymous title track. All in all this album is up there with "Fear of a blank planet" as my favourite album of 2007 so far and there are a great many prog bands who would have liked their debut album to have been as good as this. At first listening it may seem like simple rock/pop, but repeated listenings bring out the subtleties in the instrumentation and particularly the vocal harmonies. The spoken words add to the overall feel of the album without being embarassing in a Moody Blues way. I can hear bits of their quoted influences (King Crimson, Marillion, Tom Waits and Rush) but they have found their own sound here and it's a good one. Highly recommended."