THE BEGINNING OF THE END

This work of Unoma has involved a significant shift in style and quality.

The album is a personal bet of Fidel Vazquez, who has given to the production a hard sound and sometimes a little dirty, typical of the U.S. west coast. Excellent production, I would almost say that the best production of the decade in any area of Spanish music. The truth is that this gem, this diamond has the great difficulty of not having the necessary promotion in Spain and, consequently, its national and international outreach is limited.

It's an album is much more direct and radical break with the style he showed in his CD "Chroma. " Closer to bands like Tool, letting go a more traditional concept of progressive rock to get into something much more modern and strong.

The power of his songs is a bit muffled the sound off as extremely serious and that mitigates the dynamics of music from other times. That is, this work is ready for modern ears.

In summary, invest a little money to enjoy to this good work.

Unoma are a band from Spain who are listed on PA under Jazz-Rock/Fusion. This is the only album I have heard by them so far, but this sounds more like prog metal to me. Good prog metal too. I hear very little of a jazz influence on this album. This group is led by guitarist Fidel Vazquez, and they are very guitar oriented. The vocals are mostly in English and feature both male and female singing. The female vocals of Aurora Ferrer are really good, sometimes being overdubbed and double-tracked at times.

Parts of "Out Of Control" remind me of both Alice In Chains and Tool. Great chorused guitar and melodic bass playing at one point. Followed by a great mid-paced rock groove. "An Expensive Illusion" has some male vocals. Both male and female vocals harmonizing at times. Features a nice bluesy guitar solo. "Eight" is a nice instrumental with cool synth sounds with some electronic percussion. It's only a minute long...way too short! The best song on the album is probably "Dragon Sin Piel", which has Spanish vocals. There is a Spanish influence in the music as well. The drumming really stands out in this song, and the vocals are very good.

"Corrupt Song" has mostly male vocals and cool echoed percussion. Another song that is way too short. The album ends with a suite divided in three parts called "The Incredible Lightness Of Gravestones". Part one is titled "The End". This is really good with an easy going mellow mood. Nice mix of guitar and vocals. Part two is "The Dream". This has acoustic guitar and what sounds like piano. Part three is "The Other Side", the longest song here. More heavy than the previous two parts, but has some less heavy moments as well. A little spoken word section. I like the drums near the end.

I would say this is a good album, but it's not extremely proggy and certainly not very jazz-rock-y. The music is very accessible but not too commercial sounding. The sound and production is generally very good. The way the overdubbed vocals are mixed is well done. I'm not sure who to recommend this to. Prog Metal fans I guess. I don't think people who are really into fusion and/or Spanish-influenced prog will enjoy this very much. It's a decent album nonetheless, I'll give it 3 stars.