Impressive high octane rock album with progressive touches.

Is it me or do the Escape music label take sadistic pleasure in producing quality album after quality album? It’s always a dilemma for us, the listener, in these most difficult of financial times, which albums are worth parting with our hard earned for and which to leave on the shelf. I think this is one very interesting release that definitely belongs in the former camp. I have to admit though, I was a wee bit unsure upon the first listening as I’ve never been a big lover of music that has a tendency to have a leaning towards the progressive rock genre, but by the third or fourth play I began to appreciate the fine musicianship and the pacy and dramatic atmosphere that ignited my imagination on more than one occasion.

Opening double salvo is the finely written ‘Never Touched The Rainbow’, a bombastic highly charged rocker, followed by the formidable ‘Hourglass’ with it’s thunderous drums and bassline supplied by Rane Simoinen and Henkka Tuura respectively. ‘Deep Down’ continues with the undiluted pounding bass guitar but it’s on the title track ‘Hell Or High Water’ that the band really seems to excel on this platter, loaded to the rafters with hi-octane heavy riffs with a tinge of melody that I think will make this a surefire winner on the live circuit. Rounding the album off are penultimate track ‘Miracle’, very much from the Queensryche school of rock, and finally ‘Two Hearts Collide’, a haunting and melancholy little number, not an ideal way to bring an album to a close but still worth a listen all the same.

In all, a surprisingly decent album from a genre that I don’t usually sit too comfortable with. Maybe I should take my musical blinkers off and investigate this style of music with a more open mind in future.

Graham Hatton