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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Ziguri

onetwothreefour

Review by Gary Hill

This is a very weird album. I like the majority of it quite a bit, though. It's really hard to pinpoint to a style. There is a lot of world music here for sure. It has a lot of space rock, too. Add in some jazz, more traditional prog and some stuff like the Rock In Opposition movement, and you'll be in the right territory. This is unique, but also mostly compelling.
 
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Track by Track Review
Pietra di Bismantova

This cut is over thirteen and a half minutes in length. I trippy kind of free form world music based segment opens this. That holds it for quite a while working through some changes. Then it shifts out to some serious space rock based sound to continue. It gets very hard rocking at times. This is so crazed, and yet so cool. There are some space rock meets jam band elements later in the piece.

U-dongo moto

Dark, mysterious and still heavy, this comes in with stabbing waves of sound. It works out from there into a more cohesive and energized jam. It gets quite hard rocking before this ride finishes.

Radio Blisga
This is very much world music merged with space rock. It builds gradually and has some killer jamming in place. The cut works to more pure proggy stuff for a while. Some weird stuff serves as a backdrop for world music styled vocals later.
Sun Sons Sans
I dig the rocking jam on this number. It's definitely got a lot of prog in the mix, but also pure space rock and some world music. It energetic and rather catchy.
Skykiss
Even longer than the opening piece, this runs almost fifteen minutes. It starts with some space rock, but gradually some jazz joins. I'm reminded to some degree of Bruford Levin Upper Extremities as this pushes forward. It is very much a space rock type piece in that the changes all come gradually as it pushes a fairly straight line forward.
Hotel Babel
This is trippy, sparse and jazzy. It has female vocals that are mostly spoken. The rhythm and percussion is definitely on the weird side. So is the melodic aspect of the piece as it works forward later. Strange as this is, somehow it works.
Dialekt
This cut is over nine and a half minutes long. It's very jazzy in a lot of ways. There is world percussion along some cool, almost spoken female vocals. It's a pretty straight line tune that's more mainstream than a lot of the rest.
Apricot Brandy III
This comes in extremely weird with strange sounds and voices dancing around in this thing. Weird prog rock jamming emerges after a time. Jazzy elements are added to the mix. As it continues forward we get shifts and changes, but all are rather bizarre. Then a jam a bit like a weird prog take on the Munsters theme song emerges for a time. Freeform, crazed jamming emerges from there. A weird section that's mostly people just sort of moaning "apricot brandy" comes next. I t feels suitably drunken. More musical madness emerges before this is over. This cut is over 14 minutes long. It's the one piece that leaves me scratching my head, though. It's too freeform and strange for my tastes.

 

 
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