Reviewed by Paul S Ganney

Nth Ascension are a prog-rock band hailing from Lancashire and this CD is available for download from aurovine.com with all tracks labelled "free". It's self-recorded, which means it suffers a little in places on a production level but the overall quality is very good and the musicianship high calibre. It's all there: the heavily flanged picked guitars, the unusual chord changes, the sawtooth-with-modulation synth tones, the guitar solos that start with one long note, the long instrumentals (including some whole tracks). Think Camel, Neal Morse, Barclay James Harvest, Amplifier: I detected hints of all of them (plus one riff that was very Iron Maiden). Nth Ascension would sit nicely on the prog stage programme at High Voltage and not be out of place. The vocals are very distinctive but could do with a bit of production polish to make them sit even better in the mix, the bass needs to be a little tighter (in sound: the playing's excellent) - but everything else is just right. If you love prog, then you need to check ou this band of believers. They really are very, very good and the track "Return Of The King" is a gem.

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