Canvas Solaris have been putting out albums consistently for a few years now. Being a progressive fan, their brand of “prog” never really made any impact on me like how label mates Spiral Architect or Gordian Knot had managed to. But with Atomic Dreams, the band has successfully managed to keep me inspired and absolutely spellbound for a couple of weeks now. These guys are definitely one of the most promising “new” progressive bands to come out in the last decade or so. Musically, the band has come a long way since their debut 'Sublimation', which was released in 2004. The album starts off with 'The Binaural Beat' - a very psychedelic trance inducing number. It's after this that the album really kicks into full gear with songs like – “Reflections Carried To Mirror””, “Heat Distortion Manifest” and “Solar Droid”.

The sound of the band is kind of hard to describe but anyone who even remotely likes progressive music ought to check this out. There's plenty of dissonant Watchtower-esque sections on top of the very easily noticeable 70's progressive rock and early 80s synthesizer driven progressive sounds. They’ve also managed to use percussive instruments very effectively on this album. Really jelling in with the rest of the band. Especially on bass heavy songs like “Chromatic Dusk” and “Patterns Spiral Into Swarm”. The album art also needs special mention. It reminds me of old Cathedral album covers.

Year – 2008
Label – Sensory Records

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