The Tangent - The World That We Drive Through (2004) {Special Edition}

The Tangent is a collaboration between British keyboardist and singer Andy Tillison and several moonlighting members of Sweden's Flower Kings. The band's overall sound is distinctly British, though, drawing heavily on the mystical Canterbury Scene of progressive rock and, equally heavily, on the sounds of 1970s jazz fusion. The world is divided into two kinds of people: those for whom this sounds like a description of heaven and those who would rather have their brains eaten by monkeys. Neither school will be surprised by anything on this album, which features dramatic vocals, inward-looking lyrics and lots of elegantly drawn-out guitar and keyboard solos, and on which the average track length is about 12 minutes. Tillison is a fine singer (who really shouldn't try to quote Burt Bacharach), and Roine Stolt is a guitarist-and-a-half who could probably stand to rein in his solos by about a minute or two. But for those who love this stuff, it doesn't get much better than this. For those who just can't enough, a "special edition" version of this album includes a 16-minute bonus track titled "Exponengesetz."

~ Rick Anderson, All Music