BLUE OCTOBER ONE DAY SILVER, ONE DAY GOLD ALBUM CRYONICA RELEASE: JUNE 6, 2005 REVIEW: OCTOBER 7, 2005

Blue October are a four member electropop outfit, with some nice tunes. This UK group certainly have a lot of talent in the music production field, creating some very nicely organised and musically interesting backdrops. Unfortunately not all of the tracks leave the starting blocks, but happily these are in the minority. "It's Not Enough", the first track of this long-player, sets the tone for the rest of the disc; a nicely crafted dreamy synthscape with tweaked vocals.

Variations on this theme follow until "Nervous Energy" which changes tempo to create a slightly funkier groove. "Pushing" dramatically reduces the vocal content to a heavily vocodered chant - and creates an interesting track along with it.

Undoubtedly the best track though is "Nowhere", which cuts down on the vocal content, allowing the musical imagination to come to the fore - and a treat it proves to be too! Full of flare and imagination, it is actually a shame there isn't more of this material on the album, as they really are good at it.

Three club mixes are included, which provide some more beat-driven interpretations of some of the key tracks, but I still feel that the instrumentals allow the musical creativity to breathe more. A greater mixture of vocal and instrumental tracks really would make this group something to talk about.

MIKE WHYTE