Office of Strategic Influence is the first studio album by American progressive rock band OSI, released by Inside Out Music on February 18, 2003.

Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos originally recruited Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy to work on a progressive metal album.

When keyboardist and vocalist Kevin Moore (founder of Chroma Key and former Dream Theater member) joined the project, the musical direction of the album changed to become more focused on soundscapes and composition than musicianship.

The album is named after the Office of Strategic Influence, an organization set up after the September 11 attacks to spread misinformation and plant false news items in the media, among other functions.

[1] He then sent Kevin Moore (who was living in Costa Rica) some MP3 files of the music he had written and asked him to write some keyboard parts.

[1][3] "The Thing That Never Was", a track on the bonus disc, shows the direction Matheos and Portnoy originally planned to take the album in.

In order to keep the album from becoming too similar to Chroma Key, Matheos and Portnoy decided to feature a guest vocalist on one track.

For the particularly sparse and texture-heavy tracks, Malone did much doubletracking to create "a natural kind of chorusing"[9] he prefers to any digital effects.

[9] Before the recording of Office of Strategic Influence, the last time Moore and Portnoy worked together was on Dream Theater's Awake in 1994.

In a 2009 interview, Portnoy blamed his frustration with the project on Moore:[2] I honestly went in there with an open mind and I was truly excited to work with Kevin again...

But it ended up being more of the same old shit that it was when he left Dream Theater... making those records [Office of Strategic Influence and Free] with Kevin wasn't fun.

is about the US supplying military arsenals to other countries to protect its own national interests),[10] although Matheos stated that the album was not political in nature.

[3] Moore described his influences as minimal techno, experimental electronic musicians and "bands that play live and then chop it up".

Part of its mission was to spread misinformation and plant false news items in the media in order to "influence the hearts and minds of the opposition.

The third track, entitled "The Thing That Never Was", is a seventeen-minute instrumental performed by Matheos and Portnoy, showing the original direction they intended to take the album in.

[10] Matheos, Moore and Portnoy decided against sending out promotional copies of the album before its release date in order to prevent an early Internet leak of it.

"[16] He described the album as "almost in complete contrast to the parent bands' other related side projects," such as Liquid Tension Experiment and Transatlantic.

[16] John Bollenberg of ProgressiveWorld.net praised Matheos, Moore and Portnoy for "[starting] from scratch without copying their past in order to deliver something fresh, new and exciting.

[15] 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.

[15] 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.

Moore's imaginative style and natural skill coax a myriad of sounds from his instrument to challenge Matheos in the mix.

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.

[16] In contrast, Sander criticized Moore's voice as "dull": "the many added distortion and echo effects cannot always make it more interesting.