SCIENTIFIC

Apparently the slackers of OZRIC TENTACLES haven't recorded nearly enough music to satisfy their fans, driving many of them to organize their own copycat bands. One of the better clones was this Aegean outfit, long defunct, but in their heyday close enough in style to function almost like an unofficial tribute group, for a time even earning an endorsement on the official Ozric web site.

All the familiar tics are accounted for, and played with a sometimes thrilling sense of déjà vu: the same energetic space jams, the same subsonic dub excursions, the same burbling synthesizers and blinding lead guitars. But what the quartet couldn't duplicate was the same grass-roots support system, hardly surprising in conservative Greece at the turn of the last millennium. The end result was only a handful of tracks and one EP (not a full album, as it's currently listed here) containing just about everything the group ever recorded: five short instrumental jams, with two of them repeated in a live television appearance, a welcome video bonus to the disc.

They certainly weren't original, and lacked the technical finesse of their Somerset role models. But the band's enthusiasm and skills were beyond question. And they came by their near-eastern riffing more honestly than the Ozrics. The TV material shows how easily the music came alive in concert, but also reveals their collective Achilles heel: the players had no charisma on stage, perhaps a clue to the band's untimely demise.

The project was over almost as soon as it began, a blessing in disguise if you consider the alarming redundancy in the greater Ozric catalogue. It's a pity the band died so quickly, before they even had a chance to develop. But at the end of the day a page in these Archives isn't such a bad final resting place.