OSI: Америкалық прогрессив рок тобының тарихы

American progressive rock band

OSI was an American progressive rock band, originally formed by Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos in 2002. Chroma Key keyboardist and vocalist Kevin Moore is the only other full time member of the band. The collaboration may be considered a studio project, as its members and contributors write and track most of their material independently, sharing and developing tracks long distance, only coming together at the end of the process for mixing and additional tracking. The band's name is a reference to the Office of Strategic Influence, a short lived American government agency formed in 2001 to support the War on Terror through propaganda. The band has featured a number of guest musicians on its albums, including Sean Malone, Steven Wilson, Mikael Akerfeldt, Joey Vera and Gavin Harrison. Matheos recruited Moore, Dream Theater's drummer Mike Portnoy, and Sean Malone (Fretless Bass and Chapman Stickist) to perform on what was originally planned to be a Matheos solo album. Matheos and Portnoy originally planned to produce a progressive metal album similar to Matheos' work in Fates Warning, however Moore's impact changed the music's direction and genre, incorporating electronica into the original progressive metal sound. The band's debut album was released by InsideOut Music in 2003. OSI was originally intended to be a one off project, but Matheos and Moore found they both had gaps in their schedules so produced a follow up. Free was released in 2006, with Portnoy returning to play drums as a session musician rather than a full band member, due to personal and musical differences between him and Moore. Blood was released in 2009, with Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison replacing Portnoy. The fourth album Fire Make Thunder was released in 2012 by Metal Blade Records, with Harrison once again on drums.

Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos originally intended to create a progressive metal supergroup while Fates Warning went on hiatus. He recruited Cynic & Gordian Knot fretless bass and Chapman Stickist Sean Malone and Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy to work on the project. Matheos then asked Chroma Key and ex Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore to contribute by adding keyboard arrangements to the music he had written. Moore instead heavily edited the music, changing the song structures and adding vocals. Matheos decided to pursue this new direction, sounding closer to Chroma Key than standard progressive metal, over his and Portnoy's original idea. Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree wrote lyrics and performed vocals on one track. Songs with a strong progressive metal influence were mostly written by Matheos, while Moore had greater influence over the vocal driven tracks. Portnoy made minor arrangement suggestions but did not take part in the actual writing of the album. Differences between Moore and Portnoy led to his return on the follow up album as a session drummer rather than full time member. InsideOut Music released Office of Strategic Influence on February 17, 2003. Moore chose the group's name and album's title, referring to the Office of Strategic Influence, established by the US Government after the September 11 attacks to spread propaganda.

Matheos and Moore did not plan to make a second OSI album, and returned to their own projects after the first album's completion. In 2005, they both had free schedules, so decided to produce a follow up album. Joey Vera (also of Fates Warning) played bass on the album. Portnoy originally told Matheos and Moore that he did not want to perform drums on the album, but was persuaded to perform on the album as a session musician. receiving generally positive critical reception. Critics noted that the album was darker and more keyboard focused than the band's debut. re:free, an EP featuring remixes of three tracks from Free, was released on October 24, 2006. The band were keen to tour in support of Free, but no live shows materialised. "The reality of it is in order to [tour] the way we would like and present it the way we would want to present it would cost too much money for the kind of fan base that we have right now," Matheos said in 2009. In 2010 he anticipated that OSI will "remain a studio band." In September 2008, Moore posted an update on the Chroma Key website, stating that he and Matheos had been working on a third OSI album for several months. Portnoy was replaced by Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison and Matheos played bass on the album. Opeth vocalist and guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt and No Man vocalist Tim Bowness wrote lyrics and sang on one track each. Blood was released on April 27, 2009 in Europe and May 19 in North America. The album received positive reviews: Andrew Reilly of Madeloud said that "with Blood the two have finally found the stylistic fusion their first two discs hinted at", and praised Harrison's drumming. The label reissued Office of Strategic Influence on September 28, 2010. Written and recorded throughout most of 2011, OSI's fourth album "Fire Make Thunder" was released on March 27, 2012. Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree was once again enlisted as session drummer along with a co writing credit for the song "Enemy Prayer". All other instruments and programming were performed by Matheos and Moore, while lyrics and vocals were handled exclusively by Moore. The recordings for the album, with the exception of drums, were performed at the musician's respective home studio. In July 2011 at Sound Farm Studio & Recording Environment final overdubs as well as some additional writing and arranging were completed. The band mixed the album alongside engineer Matt Sepanic. Engineer Roger Siebel handled the final mastering. The record was produced by both Moore and Matheos. During the development process, Kevin Moore kept frequent updates referring to the mixing process of the album on his official Facebook and Twitter accounts.

On the current status of O. S. I., co founder and lead guitarist Jim Matheos offered the following quote in a June 2016 interview about the possibility of a future album, "No, as I just said it's the same situation with John. Kevin and I are both busy doing other things. I believe Kevin is experimenting and working on some Chroma Key material right now, so who knows In the future I would love to do it and if it happens that's great, but there are no plans right now. My main focus for at least the rest of this year and probably next year is going to be Fates Warning."