OMNIBUS 4 - THE BERNARD & PÖRSTI SESSIONS

Having always been almost void of other PA Collaborator/Expert reviews besides mine, The Samurai of Prog seems to be rather overlooked in the Prog Archives community. That may have something to do with their origins as a prog covers recording unit, as foolish as it is concerning the productivity of ambitious original material ever since. Or perhaps the multi-national, utilitarist, tailor-made way of producing albums after albums in the firmly classic symphonic prog oeuvre isn't initially as interesting as the works of the 'real' (classic or modern) prog bands.

But one thing is certain: their albums -- always lavish CD packages, not digital releases -- sell very well and tend to get out of print quite soon. This is the pragmatic reason for the series of Omnibus box sets that re-release the sold- out albums with the addition of several bonus tracks. Also the booklets for these box sets are carefully made and informative of the involved musicians track-by-track; compared to the orginal albums, it's the lyrics that have been omitted.

The "Bernard & Pörsti" moniker used on certain albums has a simple explanation: the third core member, American multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Steve Unruh, wasn't able to keep the hectic pace with the two. "Out of respect for Steve, we didn't call it 'The Samurai of Prog', but in practice, it was marketed (by others than the original record label) as such, and the public still tought of the albums as TSoP's." After re-joining Bernard and Pörsti as a full-time member for The Man in the Iron Mask (2023) Unruh withdrew, by mutual agreement, from the core member status. "Meanwhile, all of us (including Steve) believe the name 'Bernard & Pörsti' is no longer justified, so we will forge ahead as The Samurai of Prog."

To me personally, the three albums featured here represent the era when I began to get "too much" of TSoP as their loyal reviewer. The anime inspired Toki No Kaze (2019) had been my ultimate fave TSoP, and since that I haven't been equally thrilled anymore. To cite my original review for Gulliver (2020), "this is actually the most coherent TSoP album ever, with an easy-to-follow single narrative entity, dealing with Samuel Gulliver's adventures in four different imaginary lands". It's also among the TSoP albums where the Foxtrot era Genesis is the most obvious influence. The album's vocalists are very Gabriel-esque Marco Vincini, Daniel Fäldt of the Swedish prog band Simon Says, Steve Unruh, and Stefano Galifi from Museo Rosenbach. There are three instrumentals and three sung pieces of epic nature. An album that won't let down the TSoP fans, I still believe. The fine bonus track 'Ordinary Man' (12:00) composed by Alessandro Di Benedetti is sung by Michael and Lauren Trew.

La Tierra (also 2020) has remained unreviewed here altogether. It's a unique TSoP album in being completely sung in Spanish. The inspiration for the entire album was the 30-minute (!) title song composed by Chilean prog artist Jaime Rosas. Now I haven't listened to this album as dedicatedly as an album review would call for, but it seems to be very rewarding in its uniqueness, helped by the female main vocalist Ariane Valdivié. The keyboard sounds are highly varied, and there are plenty of other instruments such as flute, French horn, sax and violin. Worth mentioning is the solo piano piece 'Canción desde la Caravana' by David Myers. The bonus track 'Fuego' is composed by Rafael Pacha and sung by Ariane Valdivié.

Robinson Crusoe (2021) is rather similar to Gulliver in the way it features vocalists reminiscent mostly of Peter Gabriel and Fish, less varied in this matter than the best of TSoP albums. I finished my original three-star rating with the words "if you dig the vocal style and bombastic dynamics, this album is strongly recommended. The arrangement has fantastic diversity and there are so much of fine details to be found." This disc has three bonus tracks, two instrumentals and one sung by Daniel Fäldt.

Despite not representing my personal favourites, this set is worth purchasing if you're a TSoP fan and have missed some of the original album releases.

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