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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Slivovitz

All You Can Eat

Review by Gary Hill

Modern progressive rock, there is a lot of King Crimson built into this. That’s far from the only thing on hand, though. This is creative music for sure. It’s dynamic and diverse. Yet, it’s also very compelling. This is a great album start to finish as far as I’m concerned.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2015  Volume 6 at lulu.com/strangesound.
Track by Track Review
Persian Nights

This comes in mellow, and rather acoustic based, but also menacing. It feels a bit like California Guitar Trio to me in this format. It works out from there in more rocking territory, bringing some definite King Crimson to the mix. As it continues some world music is heard at times, too. This thing gets pretty intense at times. It also drops way down to mellower, jazzy stuff later. It works out to more impassioned and powered up jazz from there. That holds it for a time before the song eventually shifts back to the Crimson-like stuff. This is a dynamic and powerful track and a great opener.

Mani in Faccia
This jazz rocker has definite King Crimson like overtones. It’s fast paced and has some stellar instrumental work. There is a great staggered timing to a lot of it, too. It is another powerhouse for sure. I love the funky bass that shows up later, along with the violin. This isn’t as dynamic as the opener, but it’s every bit as strong.
Yahtzee
Mellow sounds open this, building into something a bit like spacey jazz. After staying in that kind of motif for a good period of time, this intensifies and speeds up for a short burst. Then it drops back down with some killer bass work driving it. It builds back out from there. At it continues to evolve, there is some world music jamming in a mellower motif. The cut shifts and turns and seems to incorporate the various things at different times throughout.
Passannante
Jazz, Crimsonian elements and more merge on this smoking hot rocker. It’s actually one of my favorite cuts here. It has some awesome musical passages for certain. This one is worth the price of admission all by itself.
Barotrauma (La Zappa sui piedi)
This is the most unique track here. It’s a bit on the weird side. It’s bouncy, trippy and yet fun. It has jazz, hard edged prog and a lot of world music built into it. It turns more mainstream jazz-like later in a real powerhouse jam.
Hangover
This comes in mellow and fairly slow, even though it’s also quite intricate. It gains jazzy aspects over what had been a more rock oriented arrangement as it pushes forward. As it builds out later the violin soloing over the top of a prog rock arrangement brings a lot of melody and drama.
Currywurst
Hard edged rock is interlaced with funk as this starts. The jazz elements join shortly. As this works through it gets into some great bluesy soul territory. When the harmonica solos over the top that point is definitely brought home. It feels a bit like James Brown turns jazzy prog. Further down the road it dissolves into some weird chaos for a time. It comes out of that with a mellow, but subtly menacing movement that builds with a real space rock element. It builds back out to a nicely off kilter and  high energy jam at the end.
Oblio
Coming in mellow, and a bit strange, this is a classy track. It works through some killer melodic sections. It resolves through a number of changes becoming a great King Crimson like jazz infused number.
  
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