TRACK LIST:

1.  Look Up 0:45
2.  Sky in Falling 5:26
3.  Dream in Red 6:29
4.  Better View 5:59
5.  Outside the Painted Walls 5:08
6.  Revolution Road 7:41
7.  Forever Nights 5:40
8.  Ptolemy 5:49
9.  Gypsy 4:02
10. Savor Every Moment 4:33

PERSONNEL:

Erik Norlander - keyboards 
Mark McCrite - guitars; vocals
Don Schiff - NS, Stick
With:
Greg Bissonette - drums
David McBee - vocals 

Analysis. The first CD includes seven songs and three instrumental cuts, most of the disc's content displaying the trademark Rocket Scientists sound, which - quite understandably - has much more common ground with the group's first two studio recordings than with "Oblivion Days". In all, there is nothing revolutionarily new on "Revolution Road" (yet another pun - how vexing:-), and while this effort is progressively more distinct than "Earthbound", it is slightly inferior to "Brutal Architecture" in that field, some concessions to the notorious demands of the time being obvious on many tracks. Above all however, this remark concerns three songs with David McBee behind the microphone, namely Sky in Falling, Dream in Red and the title track, all standing out for their dense sound, the first two having a rather distinct modern feeling only in places, whilst the latter throughout it. That being said, Revolution Road appears to be a straight motorway, perfect for a high-speed drive, the name of Arena knocking emphatically at my memory's dusty attic:-) each time I listen to it. This groovy-and-rocking number once reveals a rather long and very effective instrumental section with enough place for each of the band's three permanent members, Erik Norlander, Mark McCrite and Don Schiff, to more than once show their desirable technical skills. Due to its both bright and impelling nature, as well as its instant accessibility, the title track could've become a really apt opener for the album, whereas it is located below the disc's conventional equator. On all the other tracks, Rocket Scientists more precisely follow, say, their own special way, from time to time intermixing their original style with the influences of The Beatles, Rick Wakeman and ELP. Notable for its Emerson-meets-Holst-stylized synthesizer solo, Sky in Falling is much richer in theme and pace shifts, as well as some other essential progressive features, than the title track. There also are acoustic guitar passages very wittily inculcated into the basic textures, those developing alongside the heavy guitar riffs being especially wonderful, as their fragility becomes then perceptible on an almost physical level. (By the way, such efficient tricks can be found on more than a half of the tracks here, on the first disc. The acoustic guitar doesn't add any transparency to the music, but instead makes it denser, more contrasted and saturated all alike - a really unique discovery!) Nonetheless, my favorite amongst the songs featuring David would be the slightly Doom Metal-inflected Dream in Red - not only because the group much less often sin with returns to a previously turned furrow here. This song is generally very good, and by the way, it opens a set of the three most progressive tracks on the entire album. They follow one another, the other two being masterworks, finding their makers at their most adventurous, which is synonymous with "best" for this particular reviewer. The amount of purely instrumental maneuvers on Better View exceeds that of mixed ones, while the next track, Outside the Painted Walls, is an instrumental and includes so many different themes, turns and twists (there are even quasi improvisations in places) that it would be enough to construct no less than five such pieces as the title track for instance, the ensemble work being also the most interesting here. Whether you call these vintage or retro Symphonic Progressive or classic Art-Rock, each of the definitions will be correct. David has a powerful and a very flexible voice, but his approach reminds me of that of Max Bacon, who is known to many as a lead singer for GTR, as well as a backing vocalist for ABWH and Yes. Mark is a possessor of a narrower voice range than David's, but anyway I like his warm and soulful singing better, and I am equally satisfied with the other three tunes sung by him - be it moderately complex Sympho Prog, as is Forever Nights, or the rocker Gypsy or a gentle symphonic ballad Savor Every Moment whose pleasant uplifting melody makes it a really fine conclusion for the disc. As to the remaining instrumentals, Ptolemy has a cyclical synthesizer passage that runs almost all through the piece imparting some electronic sense to basically interesting Art-Rock. Overall, it is progressively as much inferior to Outside the Painted Walls as Better View surpasses Sky in Falling or Forever Nights. Finally, Look Up is just an intro to its successor and is too short to be viewed separately from that track.

Disc 2 (50 min)