FRAGMENTS OF LIGHT

Mostly written by the Spanish keyboard player Carlos Plaza, the music has moments of early White Willow's female vocals with lush symphonic keys, along with long composed passages using a wide cariety of real and sampled instruments. Other influences for Kotebel would be Kate Bush's dramatic overdubbed vocals and the odd chord structures perfected by bands such as Isildur's Bane or Anglagard, only in a happier mood more like After Crying. There is no ad libbing or noodling around, but a constant flow of interesting ideas. Guitar and flute take the melodies briefly, always returning to the two keyboard players for a new direction in the song, or a coda and an end point. This album (the second of three from Kotebel at this point, with another due out shortly) includes 12 songs with a full band and a solo piano piece. Of special note is the full blown symphonic "Children's Suite" complete with choral voices (not sampled) and a full orchestral sound that will take your breath away. This release and each subsequent Kotebel release have the range of ideas which push the boundaries of symphonic progressive rock without being annoying or boring. Highly recommended.

At its best, Kotebel is like an updated version of some of Spain's classic 1970s bands like Cai and Triana, with a bit of flute and high pitched female vocals thrown in. The spirited of those slightly jazzy flamenco groups oozes from the grooves of "Hades", "El Quimerista I", and the latter part of "Fire". But at times they seem far from their roots, and the keyboard domination of most tracks, such as "Legal Identity" and "El Quimerista I" is far less appealing, while the narrative of "Memory" mars an otherwise promising tune. My version of the CD has an "Addendum" called "Children", which is a suite of inoffensive but hardly astonishing piano solos. In all, a difficult album to get into by a talented outfit. 2.5 stars, rounded down.

Kotebel does not do easy listening.

What the holy squirell is my first impression of the album from this Spanish band. It is a mishmash of everything you can throw together. The first minutes with that wonderful female opera vocals and bombastic, epic classical music is brilliant. Great ! This is up my valley, I say to myself. I grin. Then the music totally change into a kind of avant-garde and jazz landscape. Not much melody here... The flamenco guitars kicks in and we are now in Spain again. Some spoken words and piano in the vein of a goth metal band from Poland I almost signed fifteen years ago then follows. The female vocals returns again and some flutes are added. The music again changes into some heavy guitars. Then it changes into some Spanish pop last explored by TRIANA. Which is the story of this album. Chaos. You never knows what comes next. Somehow there is some order in this chaos. Somehow..... ???

I am both confused and not particular impressed by this album. I think it is too fragmented and it gets lost halfway through it. But I am not willing to call it a failure. It is a decent album with some great themes inbetween the chaos. Kotebel is a band I want to explore more.

3 stars.

I can't say that this band has thrilled me so far. Their first two albums were almost all instrumental and little emotion was felt while listening to these. For this third album, there is a female vocalist who adds a bit of texture, but she is too theatrical or opera-oriented to my taste.

The long opening song (over twelve minutes) is a kaleidoscope of their music: jazz-oriented à la Crimson, some fine fluting and sweet (but short) mellotron parts are the ingredients. The world of "Trespass" is here as well as some Tull sounds are noticeable. As you can read, innovation is next door. But the music is pleasant though.

What comes next is less interesting: some jazzy cacophony ("Identified Legal"), decent Spanish acoustic guitar moments ("El Quimerista I"). I don't feel any passion either for the spoken words that introduce "Memoria". This is all flat and useless. A pity since some very fine fluting and sweet piano are making the core of this song afterwards.

The same loose feeling prevails during the long "Fuego". Skill, precision and even some emotion at times (thanks to the fine fluting as far as I am concerned). But globally nothing from the other world.

The complex and intriguing "El Quimerista II" has nothing to do with "Part I". It is fully Crimsonesque, weird but engaging. One of my favourite moment from this album (together with the opening act).

The rest of this album is pretty average. "Trozos De Luz" being the most appealing one. But all in all this album is not an interesting experience. At least as far as I am concerned. Some brief good parts aren't enough to make a good album.

Two stars.

Third album by the Spanish Classical-influenced combo comes by the name ''Fragments of light'' and, while this one does not feature any significant line-up changes (only cellist Franscisco Ochando is absent compared to the previous album), it does contain some slight upgrades in the composing department.For the first time guitarist Cesar Garcia Forero participated as an arranger of some of the presented pieces, while this one marks also Kotebel's junior attempt on including lyrics in the music, all of them are based on poems of Nathalye Engelke.The album was released in September 2003 on Musea.

Again Carlos Plaza and his teammates were able to produce highly symphonic music, which comes even closer to the Progressive Rock aesthetics due to the typical guitar/bass/drums/keyboards instrumentation plus Acosta's intense flute work.The electric textures are seriously upgraded and the very complex keyboard parts appear more frequently, while the band retains its sense of atmospheric, melodic soundscapes throughout this work.Again THE ENID might be the most proper comparison, but the bulk of electric guitars have a STEVE HACKETT-like vibe, the angular synth movements and the operatic female voices come in the vein of QUASAR LUX SYMPHONIAE plus the acoustic orientations and the passionate flute work recall RAIMUNDO RODULFO's efforts.The long arrangements are absolutely great, full of CAMEL-esque flute themes, Classical-drenched piano interludes, big symphonic keyboards and occasional guitar bursts, switching from elaborate textures to dramatic, instrumental music.The addition of lyrics, choirs and narration make this effort more compact and coherent, while the discreet folky underlines are still present.My only complaint comes from the long ''Children suite'', which sounds pretty academic, practically a piano solo piece performed by Carlos Plaza, which I doubt it has anything to offer to a Prog Rock fan, apart from some minutes of sensitive, piano-based echoes.

Nice work of pure Symphonic Rock.Well-crafted arrangements with both complicated and atmospheric flavors, a more balanced sound compared to the previous albums but also a rather needless addition at the very end of the album.Recommended.

Listening diary 10th June, 2021: Kotebel - Fragments of Light (symphonic prog, 2003)

Kotebel are one of the almost-bands of the much-derided modern symphonic prog scene. They're clearly leagues above many of the other names in terms of creativity, which is owed much to the band's chamber roots and influence from the Rock in Opposition scene, but it still falls flat in plenty of places. The biggest issue is that it's so bloated, with many sections plodding on for near-nauseating extremes. The best symph prog is manic and condensed, and this doesn't get anywhere near that, although there are bits of pleasantry.

4.8 (2nd listen)

Part of my listening diary from my facebook music blog - www.facebook.com/TheExoskeletalJunction