This is the project of four well known and respected musicians Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, Neal Morse of Spock's Beard, Pete Trewavas of Marillion and Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings. The elements brought by each of these guys made an album of progressive rock/metal but with its own personality. Keyboards and Guitar are the leading instruments on most parts of this disk, making me wonder how Mike Portnoy coped with this :o) Neal's vocals undoubtfully make this album to sound a bit "Spockbeardish" but don't expect to find the Spock's Beard sound on this album. Jethro Tull is definitely one of the bands that influenced this album, especially on the melodic parts led by vocals.The rest influences range in Progressive Rock (the sound is not very "metallic") from Yes to King Crimson and the remarkable thing is that I didn't find any similarities with the Dream Theater and Marillion sound. Early Genesis spirit is more that alive on these songs though.(note: I do NOT believe Marillion ever sounded like Genesis :)

The music's 'feeling' show a nice variety on this album. There are mellow parts("We all need some light"), nice 90s rock ("Mystery Train"), "classic" long prog with mellow parts ("All of the above", "My new Word") and experimental prog ("In Held (Twas) In I"). In overall, Transatlantic's first efford is a very good choice for every progressive rock/metal fan.

8/10

Michael Menegakis