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To-Mera Cranium Pie North Atlantic Earthbound EP Baby, You're A Rich Man Oscillation

From page 47 of Classic Rock Magazine December 2009

Cover of December 2009 issue.

www.to-mera.com

To-Mera's bold mission statement is 'to push the art form of contemporary progressive metal forwards'. After the London band's fulllength masterpiece Delusions (2008, the follow - up to '06's Transcendental)they parted with Candlelight Records and recruited two new guys: Richard Henshall (keyboards) and Mark Harrington (bass).

This is To-mera's grittiest, hardest-edged offering to date. Key to their appeal is the interplay between singer Julie Kiss and guitarist Tom MacLean. Well, maybe interplay is wrong, as the pair's relationship is built on musical conflict. While Kiss soothes and wafts, MacLean crunches and grinds; he doesn't so much play guitar as dig you viciously in the ribs. There are tour songs (Mesmerised Earthbound Arcane Solace and Another World)and each is full of myriad twists and turns lust when you think you're getting to grips with the title track, for example, MacLean pops up with what can only be described as a Larry Carlton solo. This is a bewildering, bewitching and ultimately enriching listen

Fruits de Mer

The Fruits de Mer label specialises in cmer versions of prog/psych classics on 7" coloured vinyl. Here West Country crazies Cranium Pie lavish oodles of Hammond over a Beatles chestnut ifs somehow both inoffensive and subversive at the same time. B-side Madman Running Through The Fields (by Dantalian's Chariot) is like Arthur Brown singing with the Bonn&

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Callsigns EP (scope

Scottish trio North Atlantic Oscillation are an unholy mix of Buggies, Howard Jones and El.O. Call them prog-pop, call them electro-rock... or alternatively just call them plain irritating, This EP is a taster for a full-length album, Grappling Hooks due in early 2010. Terrifyingly, we think it could be huge.