North Atlantic Oscillation: The Third Day

New age prog, great when it’s epic.

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

For this Edinburgh trio it truly is as if punk never happened. Winningly conjuring up images of Pink Floyd’s operating theatres and Genesis’s bucolic cricket pitches, they completely sidestep rock’s most turbulent era and meld 70s prog to another era where long-haired public schoolboys ruled album rock – the shoegaze scene of the early 90s.

The opening salvo of tracks here – Great Plains II, Elsewhere and August – are sonic triumphs building layers of glacial etherealness, heavy drums , innocent melodies and vaguely mysterious lyrics. It’s enough to prompt even a non-indulger to consider investing in a bong.

Midway through, though, momentum is lost – Do Something Useful’s flickering mix of industrial fans and shortwave radio sounds clichéd, while Wires is little more than a wimped-out facsimile of Kid A-era Radiohead. What promised to be an ambitious sonic symphony peeters out in a beautiful but watery haze./o:p

Johnny Dee

Johnny Dee is a freelance copywriter, creative and journalist. He's been published The Times, The Independent, Q  NME, Q, Smash Hits, The Word as well as in The Guardian, writing pieces for G2, online and The Guide, where he edits the weekly back page feature Infomania. He's got a long history as a music journalist and is also fond of sport (currently contributing to Runner's World and FourFourTwo).