After the precious Metaepitome this Finnish band is now back with a third studio release entitled And Were not here after all, and what an album this is!!
While filled in small details, this bands music is not driven by too much complex architectures or innovative approaches. Overhead is much more focused in providing well thought yet accessible, challenging yet melodic music. And this they deliver like few of the progressive rock bands nowadays. Many are too much worried in inserting tons of changes and experiments, others are totally focused on the melodic side of things but Overhead do a hell of a job keeping things apparently simple, with strong harmonies and memorable melodies while providing music that is always a pleasure to ones hears.
Not quite having such a strong track as the first from Metaepitome, still this album is more balanced throughout than the two previously released by this band. They have their share of inventiveness with To the madness and their more straight to the point obviousness in good part of Time Can Say and Entropy, but they overall deliver a nicely shaped musicality that relies in a great construction architecture that allows many changes that flow so well together that pass quite unnoticed by the listener. This is exactly the art of this band: to provide strong and accessible music that is nevertheless full of changes in direction and small gems inside each track.
By the third release Overhead has become one of my reference bands to what modern and (apparently) uncomplex new prog-rock should be. This is amazingly enjoyable and worked out, sometimes almost epic, while keeping the listener with a sense of comfort. This is earful music that sticks in your head without being commercial or common. This is simply arousing and emotional.
The band is in the top of its game. The guitars merging nicely with the bass and the piano, the orchestrations appearing from nowhere in the exact moments, the drumming perfectly fitting the musicality and the vocals addressing emotion like only the very best can accomplish. Curious are the occasional resemblances of the piano playing with that of Musevery curious indeed (as the overall music never goes in that direction).
This is simply one of the best modern progressive rock albums of the year! And I say so with conviction: Overhead is a band I really enjoy and I just hope they keep this path of events, sharing their musical visions with us.
