THE DAY WE CAME TO REALISE

Argentinian composer and musician Fernando REFAY has a number of different band projects to his CV, including Vanished From Earth, S.O.S. and Silion Zelf. In 2011 he launched a solo career with the album "The Paradox". "The Day We Came to Realise" is his second solo album, released in 2014.

Fernando Refay comes across as a skilled performer, and his prowess on the keyboards and skill in crafting compelling and intriguing keyboard passages of various kinds are at times very impressive. The compositions as a whole and the story explored aren't on the same level, unfortunately, and not all the vocal roles are as successfully delivered as others. These are aspects that will limit the reach of this production, but for those who are less concerned about such aspects and are more interested in a rock opera, exploring a dystopian setting, this is a CD that probably is worth giving a spin. Especially by those intrigued by quality craftsmanship and musicianship for the keyboard-driven aspects on this type of output.

Fernando Refay is one of the respected prog rock artist from Argentina in last decade. He release under his name 4 albums since 2010.

His second offer from 2014, named The day we came to realise being the best so far. Is a concept album, described in his own words " A concept album that tells the story of the survivors of the earth after a nuclear holocaust ", well, that is proving the great art work aswell, I can say is like a rock opera, not far from Ayreon albums

Fernando is a multi instrumentalist, he can handle very well keyboards, piano and even some vocals here and there, but have a pletora of guests here, some of them being from Vanished From Earth band where Refay is member all done a good job in the end.

The music is quite elaborated, specially the instrumental sections, maybe the vocal parts are not quite so strong, only ok, the pieces are long with opening track Balad clocking around 25 min is a winner. Melodic lines combined with more edgy make from this second album a good listen, something between symphonic prog rock and prog metal. Keyboards are all the time used throughout the entire album and in combinatian with the melodic prog metal parts and atmospheric symphonic arrangements and textures giving a worthy album.

Fernando Refay done a good job on this album and I thing worth investigated. 3.5 stars for sure.