A WAY OUT

Negua were born out of the needs of Fidel Vazquez (guitars, founder of Unoma), David Saez (drums, percussion) and David Conillera (keyboards, vocals) to form a prog-inclined project, as at the time all were part of the Heavy Metal act Onirea.The band was completed with ex- Dracma Jordi Planas on bass and singer Xavier Patricio.A year later, as Patricio could not dedicate himself 100% to the project, new singer Xiscu Lopez enters the picture and Negua recorded their debut ''A way out'' with the help of Pi-2's leader Pito Costa, finally released on Musea Records in 2006.

The style of Negua is actually very close to recent times GALAHAD, sounding like a modern Progressive Rock group, which attempts to mix different things in a one package.As such, in Negua's guitar-driven lyrical Progressive Rock one can find elements from Ethnic Music (as in the opening ''Bagdad''), Psychedelic Rock and Orchestral Rock.Unfortunately the whole effort depends much on Lopez'es voice, however this is a vocalist who tries hard to sing in English, but the result is not even questionable.Other than this, the music is very simplistic, based on heavy guitar grooves, some decent breaks and some half-interesting solos, but this motif rarely changes, resulting a slightly boring work as a whole.Additionally the lack of any serious keyboard parts make the sound one-dimensional.The later and longer tracks contain some interesting passages, almost always guitar-oriented and basically based on the groovy passages, while the keyboards and pianos become more apparent and color a bit the sound of the band.

This meant to be Negua's only effort with Vazquez focusing on his work with Unoma in the near future.''A way out'' is not interesting enough to qualify as a recommended album, the average singer and the one-dimensional sound being tha main reasons of its mediocrity...2.5 stars.