Album of the Day

Discipline: Unfolded Like Staircase. When this came out in 1997, it was hailed by a lot of folks as the best prog album of the year and, by some, the decade. Given that I'm hype intolerant, I think I judged the album a little too harshly at the time. I still don't think it's near the revelation some do, but it does what it does pretty well. This is fairly mainstream epic symphonic prog (the shortest track is over 13 minutes long) with some fairly dark Peter Hammill-inspired lyrics. Oh, and the album cover is pretty neat (look closely at the tree's limbs). Oddly, after the critical praise, the band essentially ceased to exist.