FollowUK Rock band Touchstone have announced that their 4th album “Oceans Of Time” will be released on the 7th of October through Hear No Evil Recordings/Cherry Red Records. With a UK tour planned hot on the heels of it’s release we thought we’d have a listen and see what it’s like.
Firstly, lets talk facts. The artwork, which is again designed by guitarist Adam 
Hodgson, looks good. ‘Oceans Of Time’, features 10 tracks recorded and produced at Outhouse Studios by renowned producer John Mitchell (You Me At Six, Lower Than Atlantis, Funeral For A Friend). The album marks a continuation of Touchstone’s ‘every 2 year release’ schedule, as the previous album’s were released: 2011 (“The City Sleeps”), 2009 (“Wintercoast”) and 2007 (“Discordant Dreams”). I must ask them if thats deliberate…
So with the facts out of the way, on to the interesting bit. Is it any good?
My first thought as opening track “Flux” started was ‘why is there techno coming out of the speakers?’ (my friends know how much I hate techno) but that passed in about 7 seconds and then the guitar riffing by Adam Hodgson started and I was loving it. Its quite a prog influenced track with some heavy riffing. The single of this will be released on September 9th, but the the album version is nearly twice as long, clocking in at over 6 minutes in length. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve listened to the album version of this song about 15 times already today. The riff is infectious, there’s good drumming, and singer Kim Seviour’s vocals have a nice blend of melody and power. I would be recommending this album on the basis of this song alone anyway, but lets see what the rest of its like.
The other big highlight for me on this album was “Fragments”, which starts off sounding like Shakira doing a rock song. Its catchy, got good melodies, and has quite a unique flavour to it (just in case you didn’t get that from the “Shakira doing a rock song” statement). Again the prog influence is felt here. This is another song that would have had made me recommending the album by itself.
“Tabula Rasa” features some interesting instrumental sections. Some of the licks in “Spirit Of The Age” had me thinking of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
“Solace” was a more laid back sound, but for me was another highlight. I think it showcases Kim Seviour’s vocal capabilities more than the other songs here.
“Oceans Of Time”, the title track of the album, was another good song. My first thought was whether or not it needed to be a whopping 9:24 long, but then I listened to it again and there is a quite a trek through heavier and softer sounds in this, with some enjoyable riffing along the way and in the end I thought yeah, it needed to be that long.
Verdict: 8/10.
I found this to be an enjoyable album with a few songs that really stuck in my head, that featured some widely varied musical styles blended together but still stayed true to a contemporary prog rock sound throughout. A couple of these songs will be going on my next car compilation CD.