A summit meeting between founding YES keyboardist Peter Banks (who recently departed to that great gig in the sky) and famed King Crimson violinist David Cross on this album of fresh material along with fellow prog gents and alumni in Pat Mastelotto, Tony Kaye, Billy Sherwood, Randy Raine-Reusch and a host of others. The sounds logically come across like a blend between what the two famed bands might have sounded like had they kept these gents in the lineup.
Cross’ violin is more textured and synthy than his days with Robert Fripp, but it works well with they rock steady drums and rich keys on the sinister “Rock and a Hard Place” and the moody Middle Eastern “Crossover”. Hints of vintage Crimson take place on the long shadowed “The Work Within” with electronic effects and a mist as thick as The Hound of the Baskervilles” while “Missing Time” is a meditative piece of Andalusian exoticism. Most pretty is the mix of liquid electrics and keyboards on “Upshift” while heavily hued “Plasma Drive” is a trip into India Ink’d ambient sounds that build up from a single piano not a la Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” to a volcanic climax. All throughout, the two gents sound like they’ve taken their roots and through the years, shall we dare say-progressed.