VIMANA

PROS: Very cool almost 2001: A Space Odyssey inspired cover (the monolith thing), a kick- butt rhythm section of Percy Jones and Narada Michael Walden (before he went disco). Good musicians.

CONS: Rather bland, it's been done already feel to the whole thing. I can;t think of this as even remotely progressive, but rather safely staying in the confines of a self-imposed set of limitations.

Musically, it reminds me of a Santana meets Mahvishnu sort of thing but with FAR poppier tendencies, the compositions, while tightly executed I find profoundly lack ANY real originality at all. I have to say the one redeeming song "Princess and The Frog" sounded like they were having a good time laying down the funk witha Santana-esque melody on top. Corrado Rusticci definitely owes a debt to Carlos tone-wise, he can play fast but that tends to wear thin in short order. On the title cut, Percy and Narada have a field day with stuttering punctuations and such, but the song itself sounds like Textbook Exercise # 412.

Has its moments but I find little to nothing to get excited about.

This is fairly light Jazz with some aggressive guitar once and a while. This truly is an all-star cast with D'Anna (sax&flute) and Rustici (guitar) from OSSANA, as well as Rosset( piano) from NEW TROLLS ATOMIC SYSTEM as the core. Interesting that both Phil Collins (percussion) and Percy Jones (bass) would guest on this Italian offering as well. These two guys would also be part of BRAND X who would release "Unorthodox Behaviour" the same year as this was released. Michael Walden from MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA would play the drums on this record.

"Vimana" opens with acoustic guitar and drums before we get some flute melodies that come and go. An outburst of sound 1 1/2 minutes in quickly departs as a pastoral section comes in.These drastic tempo and mood changes continue. Jones and Walden are prominant 3 1/2 minutes in before a killer guitar solo from Rustici. Some smooth sax late. "Night Games" doesn't have much in the way of a melody for 2 minutes, until the sax and drums start to lead the way. The vocals before 4 minutes are pretty good. He kind of quivers at the end of his vocal lines, probably on purpose. I like the line "Killing the time before it kills you." The guitar is again fantastic after 7 minutes and check out the drumming before 9 minutes.

"Poesia (To A Brother Gone)" is made up of piano, guitar and flute throughout. "Thru The Silence" opens with guitar and drums as the vocals arrive.The instrumental interlude includes some screaming sax and crazy percussion work. "Driftw3ood" takes a while to get going just like "Night Games" did. Vocals after 3 1/2 minutes as liquid keys and sax come and go. More great guitar 6 1/2 minutes in, as well as acoustic guitar that can be heard throughout. "Princess And The Frog" features some catchy guitar melodies while the drumming is so crisp and upfront. The percussion joins in as the guitar starts to show off a little. A change 2 1/2 minutes in as keys come in and guitar and drums leave. The birds are chirping 5 1/2 minutes in as the melody has stopped. Keys and synthesized flute end the song and the album.

This album does have it's moments, just not enough of them. It was hard to get excited about this one after hearing it a few times. Still a good record to be sure.

I have to admit that Vimana is one of my secret favorites from back in the day. There was a time when I was trying to collect anything and everything that fretless bass virtuoso Percy Jones touched. Thus, I stumbled upon this one. Boy! was I sucked in by the entirety of this excellent album. Corrado Rustici's guitar work astounds me to this day (and to think that he would go on to production Hall of Fame with his work with Whitney Houston and others!) Narada Michael Walden is awesome and I, for one, love the "cheesy" Sri Chimnoy-inspired music, titles, and lyrics of he, (Devadip) Carlos Santana, and (Mahavishnu) John McLaughlin. Each song presents atmospheric sections of heavily treated guitars and keyboards which then invariably build into fiery soli from either sax man Elio d'Anna or axe man Rustici. The only straightforward song is the finale, "Princess and the Frog" which is quite catchy. "Driftwood" and "Vimana" are among my all-time favorite songs from the 70s. Not a masterpiece but definitely one that I'd recommend to any prog lover!