Back in the early 90s, Craig Walker's stints with Power Of Dreams and Pharmacy made him one of the leading lights on the Irish indie scene. After those bands folded, a period of obscurity followed - but now the moody young Dubliner has got his career back on track as the new vocalist with London-based techno-rock outfit Archive. You All Look The Same To Me is the first result of this intriguing new partnership, a brazenly ambitious record that sets out its stall from the start with the 16-minute string-laden epic 'Again'. An elegantly bleak song inspired by a family bereavement, it's an auspicious beginning andshy; but unfortunately the rest of the album only intermittently matches this standard. Built around baroque keyboards, fuzzy electronica and synthetic grooves, the music here strives to match the complexity of Pink Floyd with the clinical efficiency of Kraftwerk, but the frustrating reality is that most of the arrangements take us down too many unrewarding sideroads. Promising, certainly, but at present Archive are a band whose ambition far outreaches their grasp.
