This is DIALETO's third studio album and their first to be released by Moonjune Records. It's pretty cool that Fabio from VIOLETA DE OUTONO and the INVISIBLE OPERA COMPANY OF TIBET mastered this album, he's one of my favourite musicians. My only experience with this band was with their debut which i'm a big fan of but here we are some five years later and unlike the debut there are no vocals this time around. This truly is a power trio bringing to mind the music of later day KING CRIMSON with that muscular instrumental work with prominant bass, intricate touch guitar along with drums and guitar. This is often dark and somewhat heavy, but very melodic and relaxing as well. It really has grown on me from what I thought was a 3 star album to a 4 star recording.

"Windmaster" has become one of my favourite. Talk about a feel-good tune that features some killer distorted guitar leads. "Dorian Grey" has this ground-shaking bass to start before the drums then guitar join in. A tune that takes it's time yet is all of that. Man these guys would be great to see live. "The Last Tribe" is the title track of course but also the shortest song on here at just under 2 minutes. This picks up quickly and is quite catchy. "Lydia In The Playground" is a relaxing track but there are some outbursts that provide some cool contrasts. Some beautiful guitar on this one. "Unimpossible" is the longest song at just under 8 minutes. It does as Ivan mentions in his review sound like Santana early on, mostly the guitar tone in my opinion. It starts to build after 2 minutes until they are ripping it up.

"Tarde Demais" really reminds me of IRON MAIDEN for about a minute and it's again the guitar tone as he solos in a relaxed manner before it changes. Such a calming, laid back track. "Vintitreis" opens with what sounds like vibes as bass joins in then takes over before it kicks in. Love the sound of the guitar on this one. Great tune. "Whereisit" opens with some guitar that has character as the bass rumbles and the drums pound. Cool stuff right here. One of the heavier tunes. "Sand Horses" is complex and building. Check out the bass ! The guitar starts to solo before 1 1/2 minutes than it's the bass' turn. "Chromaterius" is intricate to start as this atmosphere rolls in like a fog. It kicks in hard just before 2 minutes. Nice.

Well worth checking out if your into the all-instrumental thing.

I wish I would have looked away when I purchased this CD shortly after it's release. Blushingly, I admit of giving it numerous spins before it was unceremoniously disregarded as of any interest to me. Currently this album is rated as a clean 4 and if I didn't know better, on that basis I'd be racing out to obtain this work. Well, I'd suggest to try it first before parting with your money. From my angle, I hold this work solely responsible for losing interest in Rabin's future efforts.

Crossover it may be, although I see it as Prog-Related if only by association with the least memorable period of YES. I am in the minority when I state that in parts I find elements of "90125" and "Big Generator" quite enjoyable. In parts that is, a fleeting few seconds here and there in the odd song - and this is a credit to Rabin's contribution. His quirky guitar fills employing amazing sound effects along with his charmingly sweet, almost shy voice lift those albums for me. Not here though.

This work comes across as somewhat immature Pop-Rock that would be more at home at a High School Ball than in a Prog collection. Rabin seems to have missed the boat as even for reasonable Pop it fails to excite. I could liken it to Dweezil Zappa's early efforts for there is definitely some talent lurking in the background, but fails to emerge in a convincing manner. In my world it is "Collectors/fans only".

Taproban's (MK IV) fourth effort quite represents an authoritative example of what should be the real 'Dark Progressive'. The Three tracks, "Nesia Al Notturno Congresso Delle Streghe", "Lo Sguardo Di Emily" e "La Porta Nel Buio", are three long suites packed with magic atmospheres and full of excellent technical performances. The dosage of dynamics is really appropriate, featuring well-balanced passages from piano to fortissimo, as well as the use of odd rhythms reflects an attentive strategy of composition. It's possible to perceive a quite personal musical style, even if there are many references to some colossus of the genre like King Crimson, Goblin, Yes, Step Ahead, even Magma on their "Stravinskyian" side; you can even find an homage to Police in "Lo Sguardo Di Emily". The three performers are, obviously, excellent: Gianluca De Rossi, leader and keyboards wizard, Roberto Vitelli, bassist and guitarist gifted with a great taste and refinement, last but not least l'enfant prodige Francesco Pandico, with his precise and refined drumming. A very recommended listening for all its 42 minutes and 48 seconds, you will not easily forget it!!! Mal9000

Camel's debut album arrived in 1973. At this time, classic prog rock was at the height of it's popularity. I was in high school. And Yes, ELP, King Crimson and Genesis were the favorites of the music aware factions (yes - my school was enlightened). A friend introduced me to this album, and, I can admit now, I was not impressed. The lightness of the sound was not what my teenage sensibilities was looking for.

Four decades later my tastes have refined, and I am able to appreciate some of the artists I rejected in those days. And now I am revisiting this band that barely appeared on my radar back then.

In this debut, Camel sounded more like the prog of the late sixties, solo-heavy pieces with psychedelic subtexts, and a nod to the early fusion projects. To me, it could be described as a mixture of transitional Pink Floyd (pre-Meddle), a bit of Procol Harum, with some of the style of fusion of the Canterbury bands.

And now, while the album may not be as progressive as their peers, or even their own subsequent albums, I find this to be a joy to listen to. Primarily Peter Bardens' keyboards, primarily organ, electric piano and mono-chromatic synth, retro even in 1973, along with Andy Ward's tight drumming, drive the music along.

While I still would not rate this with the great albums of the seventies, it should not be overlooked.

It's as if two years ago Anubis Gate went forward in time and this album was released just on the heels of my review that wished they'd broaden their horizons beyond various metal subgenres! :) So here you'll get more dark acoustics, atmospherics, Rush-isms and even neo-prog with its expressive vocals to go along their trademark mix of power, trippiness, electronica undertow and catchy choruses. The overall sound is slightly less oppressively heavy (heavy as is not extreme but loud, mechanical and dense) than before. Tracks like Mindlessness and Airways manage to pack quite a convolute structure into their six minutes. But don't worry, this is still your metallic Anubis that needs quite a few spins to appreciate and even then I wouldn't recommend introducing it to your wife or teenage kids.

The third and final album from Norway's Aunt Mary, 1973's `Janus' sees the band incorporating gentle symphonic prog touches to their usual hard-rocking style, and along with a dose of psychedelic pop, some E.L.P/Yes-like influences and occasional jamming, this is good honest 70's rock with extended instrumental sections, strong musicianship and tasteful vocal arrangements. Despite never to be confused with being a classic, there's still plenty of interest here, and undemanding prog fans should enjoy this album and band.

The band open and close the album with a run of different tracks stitched together, attempting to create some longer progressive pieces, but I'm not entirely convinced how well this works. The individual pieces are all fine on their own, but trying to sell them off as actual `suites' of music is pushing things a little! However, the opening 12 minute trio offers three great poppy numbers. Despite `Path of Your Dream' starting the album with drum rolls, frantic hard guitar riffs and shimmering Hammond organ, it soon diverts into a jaunty sing-along acoustic Moody Blues-like chorus, the band telling the tale of "A fairy-like gnome with the magic hand, from the clouds is watching this land...'. `Mr Kaye' aims for a Beatles psychedelic acid-pop sound, a playful shorter interlude with drowsy Lennon-esque vocals and a cute double-tracked guitar solo in the middle. It then kicks right into `Nocturnal Voice', a confident and more serious mid-tempo rocker with light country guitar fills and a nicely executed electric jam in the middle, all wrapped around a winning melody. The piece is only let down by a bafflingly screeching vocal in the chorus that sounds completely out of place!

The almost 7 minute `For All Eternity' is an energetic rocker that borrows many elements from the Yes template - sweet Jon Anderson-like harmonies, galloping Hammond runs and thick chugging bass are all accounted for. But the band add some nice mellow country-rock flavours, a loopy instrumental run in the middle full of deranged whirling Moogs and some addictive jazzy licks too. Especially listen out for these little blasts of guitar aggression and distortion in the opening minute, very tasty! `Stumblin' Stone' starts as a lush thoughtful instrumental rocker, driven by constantly upfront bass, gentle Hammond washes, bringing an early 70's laid-back Pink Floyd quality overall. It then abruptly morphs into a snarling dirty groover, with a frantic wailing bluesy electric guitar outro. `All We've Got To Do Is Dream' is a pleasant and heartfelt acoustic folk interlude. `Candles of Heaven' aims for an Emerson, Lake and Palmer/Triumvirat level of bombast, with Hammond organ flourishes, chunky but fluid bass and rumbling drums, and even the lead vocal sounds uncannily like Greg Lake. It follows the E.L.P template exactly, but most impressive is the ballistic instrumental run in the final minute that has the band playing as if their lives depended on it! The band then wraps on a lovely spiritual number with a powerful epic guitar solo and Rick Wright-styled Hammond that lifts you to the heavens. "Oh Lord, what a lovely day you give us all...' the band sigh, and it's hard not to be swept along with the positivity and warmth.

At first I was very disappointed when I first bought this CD at a local record fair. I thought I was buying an album by either the U.K or Italian bands both called Janus, not realising this was instead the title of the album by a band called Aunt Mary - I thought it was the other way around! But after a few listens, Janus (the album, not the band, are we clear on that like I wasn't?!) reveals itself to be a charming, well played and melodic easy listenening prog-lite rocker. It's a bit of a shame that in several sections, the band merely recreates the sound of other popular prog bands, when they clearly had the musical talent to forge their own identity, but everything still sounds good. So hardly essential, but certainly a nice addition to any prog collection from a fine band.

Three stars.

(Just a quick note - anyone purchasing the Polygram Norway CD reissue should be aware that the track-listing on the back is not the same as what is on the disc. The CD itself has 9 tracks, and oddly credits a false start/some studio muckaround as it's own track running 41 seconds in the middle of the disc. A minor complaint, but initially confusing! Ignore it, just enjoy the album!)

In this first album the band still was trying to define in more clear ways their muscial style. I still can find some influences from Blues music in their music, and this album was quickly recorded in a few days (in less than a week, if I remember well), almost recorded "live in the studio", and,.. in Mono (WHY?). With the passing of time, they have released some Stereo versions of some of the songs from this album, but those Stereo versions maybe were recorded with the original line-up of the band (which included drummer Bobby Harrison and guitarist Ray Royer). But it seems this album was recorded after the new members (B.J. Wilson on drums and Robin Trower on guitar, which in fact were Gary Brooker`s old mates from the band "The Paramounts" in the early and mid sixties) joined the band.

I have read in the web that their "A Whiter Shade of Pale" single was liked a lot by many musicians in 1967, including The Beatles and others, who praised it a lot. Without doubt, that song was very influential in the later development of Prog Rock music. So, after promoting this song with several gigs (with the original line-up and then with the new line-up) they quickly recorded this album, but I can`t understand why this album was released until late 1967 (and some sources say it was released until January 1968), and when it was finally released, it did not include that song in the U.K. (but in the U.S. the album included that song). It seems that some management problems and a change of record label in the U.K. were among some of the problems involved in the late release of the album.

Anyway, this album in its original released form had some very good songs, like "Conquistador", "She Wandered Through the Garden Fence" (the best of all, in my opinion) and the funny "Mabel" ( with some British humour). There are also some Psychedelic influences in the music, a very logical thing because this album was recorded in 1967, and Matthew Fisher`s Classical Music arrangements in his organ playing are very good. I think that this album really sounds like it was recorded "in a hurry" and with a low budget, but it is good anyway. Despite being recorded in Mono it sounds good for my taste. But the band was going to record better albums than this debut album.

I think that the cover design is very good too, very much related to the music and the lyrics of the band. It looks to me that it was inspired by the song "She Wandered Through the Garden Fence" or by "A Whiter Shade of Pale", but I could be wrong.

It seems a strange thing to admit on a website advertising itself as "Your Ultimate Prog Rock Resource", but I prefer the music of Jane when the band was languishing in Hard Rock hell, instead of striving toward Progressive heaven. Their earliest work was simpler, more straightforward, and aesthetically genuine in a way this album wasn't. The band's previous LP ("Fire, Water, Earth and Air") made a virtue of its added refinement, but this effort leaned too far toward pretension: a noble aim for Prog Rockers if they understand the rules before trying to break them.

Which I don't believe was the case for Jane. The quartet deserves credit for expanding its musical boundaries, but in the end they resemble tourists from the wrong side of the tracks, trying to blend in at an upscale resort without having mastered the local language. Opening the album with an awesome four-minute cosmic drone doesn't automatically qualify it as legitimate Space Rock, no matter how openly the song later plagiarizes PINK FLOYD's "Brain Damage".

It's all part of the episodic, side-long title track, an ambitious but uneven achievement marred by sudden, arbitrary jumps in mood and direction. The rocking and rolling sections, typically Jane's raison d'être, actually sound more leaden than heavy, something no one could ever say about the band's older albums. Compare the song itself to the slowly escalating jam beginning soon afterward: one of those moody, hypnotic workouts rarely heard outside Germany at the time, and arguably the group's finest moment on record. It's too bad the rest of the album didn't follow the same improvisational path.

In between is an odd Latin Gregorian chant, not very happily integrated into the larger musical structure, to a degree suggesting unintended satire. Like the kindred Anglophonic rockers of ELOY, there was always a touch of Spinal Tap to Jane's proggier ambitions (think of the controversial Tap album "Rock 'n' Roll Creation"). The band was always more vital when manhandling a Hammond organ instead of caressing a bank of string synthesizers, although the ecclesiastic keyboards (with harp!) at the end of the mini-suite "Twilight" are very effective. In low-brow contrast, the final track ("Your Circle") is a routine bit of troglodyte machismo tossed like a raw bone to the group's less adventurous fans.

Over a career spanning multiple decades Jane approached the rarified air of Progressive Rock only twice: evidence of musical bandwagon jumping more than innovation. But in those two albums they ran the Prog Rock gamut through "Fire, Water, Earth, and Air" to somewhere "Between Heaven and Hell". Giant steps indeed for such a roughshod group, only a little unsure of its footing on this second leap of musical faith.

An album even most of Gabriel´s most die hard fans agree on isn't that good. It not as good as the debut album, and certainly not as good as his later material, but it does contain some good track. Peter Gabriel 2 (or "Scratch", if you like) is not as worthless as people say. Almost, though.

With the second album Gabriel makes the strange choice of pursuing the first album´s glamrock theme, but with a bit dirtier sound. It doesnt suit him at all, the songs sound rushed through and he tries to hide the lack of good songwriting behind a cold attitude of not really caring, "as long as its not Genesis".

"On the air" and "D.I.Y." is as boring as it gets. Gabriel focusing so much on having an asskicking and cold attitude, you can hardly even hear what he sings. The guitarist is riffing on pretty much only routine, just another glamrock creation. I remembered the boring "Mother of violence" as much more emotional, but I´ll give him a plus for at least trying. Then comes the strange "A wonderful day in a one-way world", which I can't get a grip on at all. What was the purpose with this one? A pop hit? A psychedelic country song? It sounds terrible and that chorus is? I would actually state that this is a really bad song.

The big surprise for me was "White Shadow", a completely forgotten track (its on Gabriels second album, so who could blame me?) and is way better than anything else on this album. Lot of synthesizers going on, some of it actually sounded so much like Tony Banks, I had to check if i guested on the album (Of course he didn't.) and finally Robert Fripp doing some of that Fripp-ish stuff with a pure Crimson-solo, small weird noises and stretched notes. Ironically, the only thing I don't like about this track is Gabriel himself, that vocal melody is very boring, especially in the chorus. Next song "Indigo" isn't bad either. It starts with just Gabriel's voice, singing out soft and clear, and a piano. Of course he adds a lot of stuff to this simple setting as the song grows, a lot of different keyboard sounds and a really good, but simple, drumline giving the song a good groove. Its a really good song sounding a bit like Gabriel in the future.

Then we are back to the ordinary Scratch-standard song. "Animal Magic" makes me think, maybe he´s trying to sound like David Bowie, which is a good thought but not a good idea. Nobody can sound like Bowie, except Bowie himself. "Exposure" sounds like an attempt to create some psychedelic funk, but the result is only cool for a short moment, soon it gets very repetitive. "Flotsam and Jetsam" is a bit more atmospheric than the other tracks and to start with it sounds promising and exciting, with a cool bassline and some good guitar playing, but it doesn't lead anywhere. Its probably the most forgettable track on the album. The two last songs, "Perspective" and "Home sweet home" are the same kind of glam rock as the first tracks, not very interesting at all except some good singing on the last one.

I would say this is a Peter Gabriel trying hard to find his own identity in music. If his debut album was a patchy experience, it's nothing against this one. Its a disaster with too many half bad ideas and too many different types of songs. Its still nothing but a revolt against his roots in Genesis and the progressive genre. To see it from a positive perspective, he never done anything this bad again. From here it could only get better.

I will see this extraordinary artist perform his music live in Sweden in May, so I thought that as a little warm up for this great event (to me it just doesn't get bigger, Gabriel might as well be god) I gonna try to review all of his albums, or at least most of them.

The first album, or "Car" as we also know it, use to be my favorite album of his. But today things seems to have changed and, even though containing great songs like "Solsbury Hill" and "Here comes the flood", the overall experience of the album feels more like a punk-rock-glam revolt from his roots in progressive music. The elements we might recognize as prog mostly feel a bit overproduced, a bit to much.

I got mixed feelings about opening track "Moribund the Burgermeister", I have to admit its a pretty damn exciting song, but its far from the Gabriel I prefer. Its probably the song closest to his previous work on Genesis "Lambs lies down on broadway", as he sings with the same kind of theatre and attitude in his voice. I love the idea about switching between two moods in the song, one mysterious and a bit creepy and one more rock and awesome. This awesomeness (Im trying to write about awesomeness as an objective word, am I kidding myself?) is working some days when the sun is shining and everything is going your way, but most of the days its too much glamrock for my taste. With another way of tackling the song it could have been much greater. I don't know how many things i really need to say about "Solsbury Hills", its lovely and just makes me feel good about everything. I prefer the live versions though, more stripped down and personal. Next song "Modern Love" is just more of that riffing glam rock, so I leave that track alone. "Excuse me" just freaking funny, barbershop with great vocals and some twists and turns here and there. I guess its a proof of Gabriel not yet being comfortable with not being in Genesis, haven't really grown out of that flower costume yet. In this song it suits his just fine!

"Humdrum" is fantastic and probably the sound he should have aimed for with this album. It sounds like Gabriel is finding himself, instead of singing out out the heart of some strange character (as with Genesis, which he does great!) he sings out of his own heart and it just becomes so much more personal. The arrangement is great on this track, a bit more scaled down with a lot of keyboards och classical sounding guitar.

"Slowburn" is an okay song but, just as with Moribund and Modern Love, its a bit too much glam rock. Its a bit annoying to think he had the great Robert Fripp playing the guitars and made him play glam/punk instead of something more? Fripp-ish. "Waiting for the big one" use to be the big one I waited for the whole album through. Its an epic blues song, just as strange as it sounds. Gabriel is really finding a bluesy voice for this one, but I don't think it suits him that well, it might be a bit too acted. For epic and strange blues, see mr Tom Waits instead (Why in earths name isn't his music on progarchives? "Bonemachine", for christs sake!) "Down the dolce vita" is like Waiting for the big one, minus the blues. On a good day this is a great track, but most of the time its just too much.

Closing track "Here comes the flood" is one of the greatest songs he´s ever written, but you won't realize that before you hear the live version with only Gabriel´s voice and a piano. The studio version is dramatic as hell, but a bit too much glam here as well. I think he´s trying too hard to make it powerful, but forget how powerful the song is just in it self (or haven't discovered it yet) All in all, this is a good album and a really good debut. It doesn't leave many clues about the future and all the great albums he will do, it sounds more like someone trying hard to not create a progressive fairytale album, but in his voice he´s still there.