A CHILD IN THE MIRROR

What? No reviews for this one yet? A friend of mine told me about this greek band, praising their original stuff. He said it sounded like a mixture of Jethro Tull, Renaissance and Gentle Giant. This description looked odd to me, but upon hearing their debut album Child In The Mirror, I realize it is quite accurate. As strange as it seems this unusual chemistry works wonderfully. As one should expect, the influences are many, like symphonic prog, jazz, baroque and classical music and lots of different folk styles. I´d say that GG is their main heroes, but I also would point out Gryphon as another group that they must like a lot.

What struck me first was their fantastic sound: great flutes, terrific guitars (bothe acoustic and electric), nice 70´s sounding keys (inlcuding Hammond organ and mellotron), very well played bass and drums, but most of all, Evangelia Kozoni´s angelic vocals. She has a great voice and the band surely knows how to write songs that sound at the same time old and original. I mean, they do seem to be from a 70´s record, and yet they are fresh and excting, helped by the obvious, much better, modern production. Interesting enough there is some very good sax and clarinet that are not credit but I believe they were played by flutist Nicolas Nikolopoulos. There are no fillers anywhere, all the tracks are excellent. And sometimes, like in Epirus - A Mountain Song, they reach the divine.

Conclusion: a brilliant debut! I would like to give it a five star rating, but since it is only their first, I have to believe they can do better in future releases. thus, 4,5 stars is a more fitting rating for now. A very nice surprise from Greece and a must have for any prog music fan. I´m looking forward to hear what they have in storage for the next CD. Highly recommended!