Voyage 34

Here is my review from the other Voyage 34: The Complete Trip:

This is great music, especially the first 2 phases. It is truly music that you can float away in, though the narrations are the one thing I could have done without. (Actually, I've grown to enjoy the narrations now.)

I concur with the other reviewers about the Pink Floyd sound. Just think of the guitar riff from Another Brick pt. 3 and the synths from Welcome to the Machine. Add a dash of the Orb a la the narratted parts and the mixing, and you have trip 34. As these long songs progress, the Floyd influence diminishes, but is still recognizable.

Since I love both groups, and The Porcupine Tree, I was quite happy with this recording. If you like any of them, I think you will be too. Definately best appreciated in a dark room on a good stereo played loud.

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This is a re-released version of the now very expensive version I just reviewed. It looks to me like the only reason to get this if you have the other is for the new cover artwork and digipack format, and the music has been remasterd a 3rd and final time. I personally like the remastering on my Delerium copy so will stick with that one.

If you don't have this album yet, then by all means pick this one up for the better price and possible better sound quality. Look for their next full album, Deadwing, near the end of March.

** Hey Woofbear (Anthony), can you tell me anything about this new Warzawa CD? My email is at kramerkreationsdotcom. Thanks. :o) **

This is the wrong album for introducing yourself to Porcupine Tree; I'd go first to the compilation "Stars Die: The Delerium Years" or "Deadwing" for that purpose. However, once you're into the band, it's a must-own component of the back-catalogue.

Ya gotta love the sheer audacity of the concept: To provide a 64-minute soundtrack for a head trip. There are only four tracks, all of which are lengthy and bear no resemblance to typical song structures. They just meander all over the place, held together by a lick lifted directly from "The Wall" and interspersed snippets of dialogue from people who have taken LSD (or the researchers monitoring them). I enjoy Phase I the best, and it will be familiar to those who own "Stars Die," but this is not the kind of album you put on to hear individual tracks. It's not an album at all, in the traditional sense, but it is a concept album in the very best sense, one that would almost certainly make Pink Floyd proud.

This album is pure genius, there is not much more to say about it. Not only is the premise (To musically follow an acid trip) very intruiging but the music itself has gravity. It pulls you in and before you know it you can't turn it off. This is the mellow rock/ambient genre in it's perfect state. The songs are constructed in such a way that you as a listener can expirience everything the subject is. It makes it so the obscurities that an acid trip may bring on seem normal, just as they would if you were really on the drug. Anyway you look at it, this CD is great and if you enjoy porcupine tree, no-man or any other great ambient groups like godspeed you black emperor you MUST have this CD. It's definetly worth your money and time.