DE HOMINE URBANO

A week ago, while walking through the CD store, saw an old vinyl copy of "De Homine Urbano" by the Danish band ACHE, the album was in very good condition and very cheap, so more with curiosity than with real conviction got it, at the end. I wasn't expecting real Symphonic rather than a late Psyche/Melodic hybrid.

While listening it, started to wonder how many things had to pass so an old record sold 38 years ago in a Danish store ended in my hands here in Perú, when I saw the signature of a friend inside the cover, it was quite funny, his father gave it to him when he came from a trip, he treasured it, but his cleaning obsessed wife sold all those dirt covered albums in a format "nobody sane" uses any more.

But back to the album, my prejudice was not accurate, the album is a gem, combines in the most delicate possible way echoes from the Psychedelic 60's with strong elements of the recently born Symphonic sub-genre, the massive use of Hammond is simply delightful, I could talk about some FOCUS influenced, but due to the date of release, this is not likely.

"De Homini Urbano" consists of two epics, the first one the self titled ballet (Yes it's true) which starts with a clear Emerson (THE NICE era) influenced performance, it's evident Peter Mellin likes pomp and brightness, the guy exploits all his skills and plays as loud as he can, combining instruments in a perfect way, hitting synths and piano with the same fury, but the star is always the organ, like suspended between the 60's and 70's in some sort of limbo, well covered by Finn Olafsson's distorted guitar.

There's nothing static in the track, everything is in perpetual motion, the radical changes come one after the other without rest, the band seems to have horror of silent spaces, covering every instant with music, when not the piano or guitar, you can clearly listen the bass or drums playing restless, like a sonic wall that hits you from start to end, simply wonderful expression of musicality.

But the closing section is exceptional, totally experimental for a band in the 70's an uncontrolled cacophony with a Baroque background, this guys were years ahead most musicians from the era, something strange for 1970 Prog of Scandinavia.

"Little Things" is a 18 minutes sort of Opera with THE BEATLES classic "Every Little Thing She Does" (also performed by YES) as main ingredient, but as anybody can imagine, they have 18:31 minutes to explore every possible variation and experimentation available on those years.

The vocals are not outstanding even when better than the average band...............From this point we get complexity, experimentation, pomp, excesses, everything that makes Prog so special, but is better to listen it than to read whatever I can say, because it's unique, so this is as far as I will go to avoid spoiling the experience.

Four solid stars for a very ambitious album that deserves more attention.