AS THE WORLD

Actually, I expected to enjoy this album more than I truly did. Not that there is nothing to enjoy here, far from that: excellent performance, tight playing, great vocal harmonies and lines, and very good sound and production, are all here in this record, divided into 16 elaborate songs. But what annoys me here is a tendency to messy developments, which does not fit my taste. It's evident that these guys prefer to throw in as many ideas per minutes as they could, rather than putting more attention at the development level.

What add to the impreciseness are some vague finales that bland into the following track, which in my opinion does not suit to the kind of materials and style, which are symphonic or art by nature, In which better separation between the tracks is required.

The first two tracks are good example for my mixed feelings about this album. Track one, 'Always the same' is a mellow short opener played by strings and sung beautifully by the band in some 'ba da da' vocals.

Right after that come a guitar in a 'wild west' mood, and the vocalist announced 'I'm stretching my ears they're open and not withstanding, To rhythmic syncopation, harmonic dissonance'...They stand on this obligation, for sure. This part of the 'As the world' song is very amusing and energetic. The development also start very nice with some baroque lines (indeed with reminiscent to Gentle Giant), but soon it becomes to some fast, messy and cacophony parts. And than comes back the chorus, in a way that reminds me a racing car that runs in screech and rolling into the last straight.

However, the description above does not fit many of the album songs. 'A short essay' is a beautiful song with great vocal harmonies and a wonderful, heavy guitar solo in the middle. 'How long I have waited' features nice interplay between keyboards and guitar that panning nicely between the right and left stereo sides. 'One for the show' is a nice, quite sentimental song.

The closing section songs (from 14th to 16th) are in a total different mood, much more calm and organized. The last song, 'Never the same', is a little bit longer track, with all the time that needed to express the ideas of a peaceful death and remaining of the soul. This song is accompanied also by acoustic section of flute, strings and classical guitar, in opposite to most of the songs that features synthesizers in the melodic roles.

Another favorite of mine I would like to mention is 'Best regards'. It opens as a catchy song accompanied at first just by acoustic guitar in nice rhythm and strumming, before the rest of the band join in, and features a real piano this time, and less synthesized sound. A great development in the middle, based on baroque passages on the Piano, and vocal harmonies, in a way that indeed brings GG to mind. For me to announce the giants source of influence is always a complement. Anyway, this album is far from being a GG derivative.

At the bottom line, despite of the development lacks, this one is an excellent album, with sufficient amount of real good songs. 'As the world' is an intelligent, elaborate while being refreshing creation, which gets my final round up 4 stars rating.

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