FLÜGHT

When I read the previous reviews some months ago and all the exaggerate praises in Latin American sites as "Manticornio" or "La Caja de Música", got FLÜGHT self titled debut, assuming that if they were half as good than people say, the album should be amazing, so I bought a very expensive LP and still after many complete listening sessions I'm not sure if the album is a Neo Classical masterpiece that bores me or boring New Age, but Symphonic it isn't.

It would be absurd to deny that Sergio de Labra is a well educated classical musician with an almost flawless technique or that the guest Armando Gonzales is a fantastic bassist and Victor Ruiz a proficient guitarist, but that's not enough to make a good Progressive ROCK album, you need soul and I find "Flüght" soulless.

To make it worst, I heard albums that have one or even two short tracks without drums (for example Dust in the Wind) or others that use a different kind of percussion (Like Tohpati Ethnomission who use frenetic Indonesian percussion), bands with those horrendous programmed drums or at least sequencers, but except for "Piano Concerto N° 1" by Keith Emerson (that pretends to be a classical work), I never hear another band that uses absolutely no form of percussion for 20 minutes, much less during along the album.

It's obvious this is not Prog or even Rock but some sort of Neo Classical fantasy with some electronic keyboards, guitar (sometimes) and bass, in other words a piano soloist with a couple of guys that join him a couple of times in the album

Now, the first track "Transparencias" is 21 minutes long (21 minutes endless to be honest) and all I am able to say is that we can hear piano, piano and more piano with subtle bass and guitar plus a few moments in which Sergio de Labra changes the piano for a synth, it may be outstanding from a technical point of view, but all the times I listened the album, was sleeping before the turntable reached the 11 minutes mark.

The second and last track "En un Viejo Castillo" (In an Old Castle), is slightly better, because the bass sections and guitar passages remind me of MIKE OLFIELD (Very diluted), and Sergio de Labra uses more Synths than in the opener.

Probably for a FLÜGHT fan who bought the album knowing that will listen a Neo Classical piano and synth release may be a masterpiece, but for a person who expends his hard earned money expecting a Prog (at least Rock) album, is worth no more than two stars.

If you are fan of Mexican Prog (as I am), stay with bands like CAST, CODICE, GOVEA and many others that play different sub-genres of Progressive Rock and leave FLÜGHT for diehard fans.