This is an intriguing set of music. It is apparently the third album from Long Earth, but the first I've heard. Their brand of progressive rock has both modern and classic elements and works well.
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Track by Track Review
Fight the Hand That Bleeds You At over ten-and-a-half minutes of music, the opener is one of the longest tracks here. It powers right in with a cool keyboard dominated introduction. It resolves out to more of a arena rock prog sound with some hard edges. This has both a modern and classic prog sound. It also includes some great twists and turns. A dramatic part later in the track makes me think of Marillion to some degree. There are some great keyboard sections along the road and a killer guitar solo.
Morpheus
More understated and slower moving, there is a spacey quality to this. There are some hints of 80s music inthis. The arrangement is deceptively complex, and this works really well.
Life i
The capitalization on this is from the album liner notes, and not a typo on my part. The "i" actually represents a roman number "1." This comes in with a keyboard-based arrangement, and it moves outward from there, building up as a melodic song. There is definitely more 80s sound on this piece, too.
Sand
Harder rocking elements gets things underway here. While this seems less proggy as it gets underway, it is packed full of shifts and changes and turns more prog oriented further down the road. It also has a scorching hot guitar section and a cool melodic keyboard dominated movement built into it.
Shadows
At nearly eleven-minutes long, this cut is the epic of the disc. It comes in mellow and builds out balladic as it continues. It builds gradually and becomes a melodic prog journey with a lot of shifts and changes. This has some killer keyboard work at times. It also has a good contrast between mellower and more rocking stuff.
Life ii - The Arc
This comes in mellow and evolves to a prog ballad approach. This grows gradually, but eventually starts rocking out more. I really love the keyboard presence in the more driving intense section of this song.
Moscow
Keyboards get things going here. This develops into quite a strong prog rock piece that has plenty of variety and change in its mix and run.
Life iii - Empty Shore
This is one of the most effective tracks here. It's quite a journey with a lot of evolution built into it. It's a great piece of music and makes for an exceptionally strong closing shot.
