AUDIO DIPLOMACY

If Uzbekistan has more musicians and bands like this, please... bring them on! I was nicely surprised when saw this band live in March this year on the Baja Prog festival. Most of the crowd was expecting to see the big names like Focus, Tony Levin, Unives Zero and others, but when Fromuz hit the stage it was amazing how hypnotized everybody was. I can say that just a few persons knew something about the band, but from that moment on i´m sure they added a lot of fans to the list.

Audio Diplomacy, believe it or not, was recorded live in their country in 2005, but the production is so fine and the public so quiet that sounds like a studio album. Maybe that´s the effect they create on people, to enjoy and listen carefully rather than screaming and cheering up. I agree with the clasification of Jazz-Fusion band, but this act has way more than that. You hear a combination of Jazz, Space Rock, Electronic, a bit Symphonic and even slight Metal moments.

This album also includes the full show plus 2 extra tracks on DVD. In this performance you can still see the band as a quartet, since they just added a fifth member(keyboards) who happens to be guitar player Vitaly Popeloff´s son. Talking about Vitaly, i think he is a very important piece of the band, like they all are, but you can hear in most of the songs how dominant the guitar is, like in most of the Jazz-Fusion bands.

All the songs are lenghted, being the shortest 7:31 and the Intro 6:09, and the longest 12:33. Just instrumental pieces with lots of keys and special effects like background sounds, chanting and child voices and laughters, electronic spacey sounds like in the "Intro", "Wax Inhabitants Town" and "Babylon Dreams", and as i said before, excellent guitar riffs and solos like the ones in "From Fromuz"(the jazziest track),"Gameplay Imitation"(referring to a chess match, very important game in their country) , "Spare Wheel" (maybe the heaviest and very progressive) and "Harry Heller Theater"(Also heavy but symphonic and jazzy too).

Off course the rhythm section is very important and they do a very good job here, like in "Familiarization Results" and "From Fromuz". Bass player reminds me of Chris Squire, more for the way he looks than how he plays.

All in all, an excellent band with skilled musicians, an album well writen and masterfully performed songs. I really wish these guys have a big succes and keep working together, not only because they make good music, but also they are nice persons, very humble and willing to please fans as much as they can. I was lucky to met them, and believe me they deserve a huge exposure in the progressive world.

I coudn´t give less than 5*

Viva el Prog!

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