Thanks to Matt from Debris for putting me on to the OSI album. Say “prog metal supergroup” to me normally and I’ll be halfway out the door before you reach the final syllable, and indeed I approached this one warily, circling round it for a good few months (twelve, actually) before hitting the Buy button. But there’s a lot of melody amidst the heavy riffing, plus some artful drumming from Mike Portnoy (who you can watch in action on the bonus enhanced CD-ROM). It puts me in mind of the late lamented XC-NN (I managed to get their second album, Lifted, on import and it’s far, far superior to the first). And surprisingly for a prog group, there’s even a political angle (what was the last prog rock song in that vein? Get ‘Em Out By Friday?), with the 9/11 theme suggested by the name carried through to the lyrics.

Of course, it turns out that most of the songs were created by splitting up a 25 minute concept track, and that one of them is in 25/16 which, as far as I’m concerned, looks as Wrong on a sheet of music as it would on a faulty digital clock.

Standout tracks: OSI; When You’re Ready; Head.