BIELA PLANÉTA

So far, each one Fermáta's first four albums had something new to offer, new styles, new concepts and sounds for us to hear. And not surprisingly, the lineup for each album was slightly different. So this is a first for Fermáta in that the lineup stays exactly the same for a second album. But unfortunately it just sounds like a weaker version of "Dunajská legenda", retaining some of the melodic sound from that superior album, mixing it with a laid back funky sound that lacks as much in passion as it lacks in inspiration. Where the concept for "Dunajská legenda" was the legend of medieval slavic rulers, here they take on great world explorers such as Magellan, Marco Polo and Columbus. These people discovered new waters, new continents, new peoples. Ironically the band doesn't cover any new ground here, the music is a mere shadow of their past excellence.

Best moments? Hmm...it's hard to come up with any. I've listened to this album a few times and never remembered much. "Polo" is definitely nice, a short compact latinesque polyrhythmic composition, with Fre?o playing a similar bass style as Tony Levin in 80's King Crimson. Yes, this level of polyrhythm was never explored by on the previous albums, I'll give them that. Otherwise, the songs just kinda fade into each other, nothing really memorable here.

"The White Planet" is not bad. It's competently played with a few pretty good melodic ideas, that are simply drowned in the more dominant sea of banal pseudo-funk mediocrity. For this reason I only recommend it to real fans of the band or collectors.

Highlights: "Polo" maybe?

My second review of Fermáta's jazz perfection, so this time, my choice is album called "White Planet", with tracklist of famous explorers. Seven of them I know, Humboldt is unknown to me, but has interesting record on wikipedia. So, I can just barely compare, if music is faithful to course of their lives and their journeys. I can tell you that with this album that you get fine piece of jazz. This is not ordinary jazz, you're accustomed, this is Fermáta sound, by which this band is well known in jazz circles. Yes, I'm just normal, mundane prog listener, so my point of view wouldn't be so professional. But as far as I can tell, you get nice, clean album full of jazz craftsmanship. I saw these guys on Za Zrkadlem gig (Behind Mirror) and can tell that they can play and they could in these times also. For normal prog, like symphonic prog, times were starting to be rough. But not for Fermáta, as they still had ideas and imagination to create this almost conceptual work. For example Kolumbus really brings to my imagination images of sea and voyage of his ships to a new world.

4(-) for ambitious concept album, which fails to hold listeners attention at times (at least my) and also is hard to understand, what exactly they meant, to what they're referring with exact guitar riff, chord, or passage in track.

Released just one year after the very good "Dunajska legenda", the album starts deceivingly poorly - devoid of progressive rock and fusion, it could be classified as virtuoso rock with quite straightforward rhythm section. "Magellan" is a shadow of previous Fermata complexity and power with mainly Berka throwing one or two wood branches into the fire. With "Amundsen", things start to look better, not in terms of intensity but sound development where keyboards and bass play adventurous modern fusion. After half the song, Fermata returns to the fiery 70's fusion with guitar soloing and even some Brian May-like sequence. "Polo" is a fantastic Latin-fusion workout with all 4 players very busy including the drummer who finally rolling up the sleeves. Great Berka provides solo but also some bass synths. Clearly his composition. Pity it is the shortest track and ends abruptly. "Da Gama" continues in the more 70's territory as does Humbold in a more accessible manner. "Livingstone" mainly builds on the irregular and dynamic shifts, kudos to Freso and Olah.

I'm quite captivated by Berka's composing and playing on this album, more than by the three others. 3.5 stars.