RELOCATOR

Relocator

Progressive Metal

3.84 | 67 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

octopus-4
Special Collaborator
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams

This is an album very hard to classify as well as Derek Sherinian who guests on it or even the FromUz, a band originally included in PA as JR/F and now moved to progressive metal.

As many instrumental albums it needs some time and listens to be appreciated. It's what happens with bands like Ozric Tentacles or Niacin. And thinking of Niacin I have to say that "Urban Blue" is not too far from their style. However, initially I was thinking that the sentence "good BUT non essential" was too bad for an album tht's probably "non essential BUT good". The meaning of the sentence changes a bit isn't it?

Back to the album it comes with a very good package. The images in the booklet, amazing pictures and paintings, one for each track, are very nice and would have made a vinyl edition a collector's item.

As I said, Niacin are a good reference for this band. There is skillful playing, a lot of fusion, specially when the metal distortion is replaced by a clean funky guitar. The choice of sounds is perfect. Any solo seems to be "studied". I'm sure that there's a lot of improvisation, but as in the best jazz, it appears like every single note is planned, specially in the keyboard parts.

While drums and guitar (when distorted) sometimes justify the prog-metal classification, bass and keyboards are almost always funky. The result is very good, the only defect as it often happens with fusion is that the album is a bit "cold" and for this reason it takes a while to grow, but with a bit of patience you will enjoy an instrumental album heavy and clean at the same time.

I have really liked the keyboards. The sounds used in each track are probably the best possible, but this is valid for the guitar too.

A very technical ensemble for an impressive debut album. For fans of Niacin, Ozric Tentacles, and of course of Derek Sherinian. An album which grows slightly and requires headphones.

Non essential but good music (with highlights above the average lik ethe title track), but played so impressively that my rating has to be increased.

octopus-4 | 4/5 | 2012-2-6

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