Office of Strategic Influence (album) - Reception

Reception

Office of Strategic Influence was critically well received. Keith Gordon of Allmusic praised the album as "offering both power and pomp." Tommy Hash of Prog4you.com described the music as "catchy, complete with great melodies and musicianship that does not overdo it." He described the album as "almost in complete contrast to the parent bands' other related side projects," such as Liquid Tension Experiment and Transatlantic. John Bollenberg of ProgressiveWorld.net praised Matheos, Moore and Portnoy for " from scratch without copying their past in order to deliver something fresh, new and exciting."

Hash described the album as having "the atmosphere of some of the mid-90s to the latter era Fates Warning fused with industrial sounding elements and sound effects that create an ambient effect." Gordon described the music as similar to Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Max Vague. Bollenberg noted "the material on Office Of Strategic Influence gets closer to Moore's very own Chroma Key mixed with dashes of latterday Porcupine Tree... there are bits and bobs all over the album that could easily have fit on In Absentia." Ed Sander of DPRP compared the album's sound to that of Porcupine Tree: "the album features both the dreaminess of some early Porcupine Tree material, as well as the aggressive riff based approach of tracks like 'Up The Downstair', 'Signify' and 'Wedding Nails' and other trademark Tree elements like distorted vocals and catchy bass parts." He noted the music was "more based around catchy dark riffs in the Porcupine Tree vein then on self-indulging fast-finger guitar or keyboard solos." Sander stated that the use of spoken word samples reminded him of Dark Star.

Gordon described the performances on the album as "crackling with electricity and passion". He lauded Matheos' performance on the album: "In any other subgenre of rock, Matheos would be a guitar hero on the order of Steve Vai or Eddie Van Halen, the Fates Warning frontman capable of both classically styled acoustic craftsmanship and chaotic metallic riffing, often in the context of the same song." He praised Malone and Portnoy for " down the bottom line with rock-solid rhythms." Sander compared some of Malone's bass parts to those in Ozric Tentacles. While noting that Portnoy "rather sticks to 'plain' drumming," he commended the drummer's performance, praising his use of ethnic percussion to give the album "an original twist".

Gordon praised Moore for "providing an instrumental counterpoint to Matheos' raging guitar. Moore's imaginative style and natural skill coax a myriad of sounds from his instrument to challenge Matheos in the mix." Sander noted Moore's contribution, saying that "at times there's more technology and electronics than in the average house release." Bollenberg noted that Moore's keyboards added "textures flirting with semi-industrial patches and often being closer to Nine Inch Nails than 'vintage' melodic prog." Hash praised Moore's vocals, noting they "fit in well with all of the instrumental textures". In contrast, Sander criticized Moore's voice as "dull": "the many added distortion and echo effects cannot always make it more interesting. His voice is okay for one or two tracks... but it's too flat to keep you tied to the speakers for much longer." He cited Moore's vocals as the main weakness of some tracks.

Sander considered "ShutDOWN" as "the absolute highlight of the album", comparing it to the Porcupine Tree track "Russia on Ice". Bollenberg listed his favorite track as "Hello, Helicopter!": "it once again gets so very close to authentic Porcupine Tree with Portnoy introducing some tribal rhythms that go ever so well with the rest of the material. I simply melt once that superb sound of the Fender Rhodes enters, taking turns with synthesizer tweaks." Gordon described the instrumental parts of the album as "powerful and purposeful: an integral part of each composition rather than an excuse to merely 'jam.'" Sander praised the tracks "The New Math" and "Dirt from a Holy Place", but criticized the more experimental "Horseshoes and B-52s": "to me it sometimes sounds like some random cutting and pasting was done on this track, leaving out a couple of seconds here and there." He criticized the track's video as "nearly unbearable to watch. If some video games are bad for people with epilepsy, this video is going to instantly kill them."