FLÜGHT

Almost a year has passed before someone review this album, now it`s my turn.

This is another mexican band, another great band which released sadly only one album in the early 80`s, im sure even here in Mexico this band is not known , it`s too hard to find the album, but anyway i`d like to review it and tell you my opinion about it, and again, suggest to you another mexican work.

Yes, this is another mexican band who dont use vocals in the album, let me tell you that this is only instrumental with plenty of keyboards and piano, great guitar job in some moments, and a nice bass, and a particular thing is that you wont find any drums on here, maybe you might think that it makes it less compex or worse, but not at all, in this case at least i dont miss them.

Now the review, this album which is self-titled album, has only 2 songs, as i say above, 2 instumental songs , where you will find lots of classical influences, some electronic moments, but mainly a piano oriented work.

"Transparencias" is the first and longest song, it`s lenght is over 20 minutes, and it`s the softest of them both, the lightest, the most classical. During the 20 minutes im sure you will enter to a deep state of relaxation and admiration , attention for the keyboard and piano lovers, this song is absolutely beautiful, i immediately remember Wakeman in his most classical tunes , and this pianist has an obvious influence of him and other epic classical piano players like Chopin for example. This song doenst have much changes, and maybe you will find it more classical than progessive, but when the guitar enters it sound also good, so great song.

"En Un Viejo Castillo" the second and las song of the album, 16 minutes of great music, but this time, the progressive influences is obvious, from the start you will hear hints of prog electronic, you will notice that bands like Tangerine Dream were one of their influences. This is another great song, an epic which is always good, it doesnt have weak moments, and as i say above it is more progressive, some changes, some little fast tempo moments, and a nice bass during the song, again we can notice the superb piano of Sergio de Labra, and all the song is very interesting and good for your ears.

I like this album so much, if you dont like classical pieces and prog songs without drums, dont try it, but if you want to give it a chance, maybe you will find it interesnting and maybe you will like it, i really recommend it, not a masterpiece , but great as an excellent recommendation to any prog fan. 4 stars for me!

When I read the previous reviews some months ago and all the exaggerate praises in Latin American sites as "Manticornio" or "La Caja de Música", got FLÜGHT self titled debut, assuming that if they were half as good than people say, the album should be amazing, so I bought a very expensive LP and still after many complete listening sessions I'm not sure if the album is a Neo Classical masterpiece that bores me or boring New Age, but Symphonic it isn't.

It would be absurd to deny that Sergio de Labra is a well educated classical musician with an almost flawless technique or that the guest Armando Gonzales is a fantastic bassist and Victor Ruiz a proficient guitarist, but that's not enough to make a good Progressive ROCK album, you need soul and I find "Flüght" soulless.

To make it worst, I heard albums that have one or even two short tracks without drums (for example Dust in the Wind) or others that use a different kind of percussion (Like Tohpati Ethnomission who use frenetic Indonesian percussion), bands with those horrendous programmed drums or at least sequencers, but except for "Piano Concerto N° 1" by Keith Emerson (that pretends to be a classical work), I never hear another band that uses absolutely no form of percussion for 20 minutes, much less during along the album.

It's obvious this is not Prog or even Rock but some sort of Neo Classical fantasy with some electronic keyboards, guitar (sometimes) and bass, in other words a piano soloist with a couple of guys that join him a couple of times in the album

Now, the first track "Transparencias" is 21 minutes long (21 minutes endless to be honest) and all I am able to say is that we can hear piano, piano and more piano with subtle bass and guitar plus a few moments in which Sergio de Labra changes the piano for a synth, it may be outstanding from a technical point of view, but all the times I listened the album, was sleeping before the turntable reached the 11 minutes mark.

The second and last track "En un Viejo Castillo" (In an Old Castle), is slightly better, because the bass sections and guitar passages remind me of MIKE OLFIELD (Very diluted), and Sergio de Labra uses more Synths than in the opener.

Probably for a FLÜGHT fan who bought the album knowing that will listen a Neo Classical piano and synth release may be a masterpiece, but for a person who expends his hard earned money expecting a Prog (at least Rock) album, is worth no more than two stars.

If you are fan of Mexican Prog (as I am), stay with bands like CAST, CODICE, GOVEA and many others that play different sub-genres of Progressive Rock and leave FLÜGHT for diehard fans.

Flught were found in 1979 in Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico, originally consisting of Sergio De Labra on keyboards, Jorge Preza on bass and Pablo Prieto on drums.They were soon joined by guitarist Victor Ruiz and played Progressive Rock influenced mostly by Italian acts such as Le Orme, Banco or Il Rovescio della Medaglia.Musicians went and came, the result was Flught to be shortened to a duo of De Labra/Ruis at the time of their first self-titled release in 1982.

''Flught'' consists of two sidelong instrumental compositions, led by the work of De Labra on synthesizers and acoustic piano.The first one, entitled ''Transparencias'' and clocking at 21 minutes, sounds more or less like a solo effort by De Labra.The majority of the track follows some short of Baroque/Neo-Classical path, filled with piano interludes and themes in a very soft style, flirting at moments with New Age music, with only the district presence of Ruis' guitars.The breaks featuring De Labra's synth work are really good and reminiscent of the BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO works, but these are very limited to raise the track significantly in terms of energy.

The second composition, the 17-min. ''En un viejo castillo'', is a bit different and features the guest appearance of bassist Armando Gonzalez.This is much closer to the works of Electronic artists as well as MIKE OLDFIELD's early efforts.The start is rather dissapointing, long Electronic soundscapes with hypnotic repetitive bass lines, but just before the middle it's Ruis' presence, which gives the composition some color with his guitars.Soon De Labra and his piano will take over again in a smooth romantic style with the occasional touches by Gonzalez and Ruis, but most of the material remains rather uninteresting.

To call this album Progressive Rock or even Symphonic Rock would be a failure.''Flught'' is more of an Electronic/New Age effort with total absence of drumming and just a few doses of guitars and bass.It is an effort strictly recommended to fans of background music, the rest should simply avoid, not to mention that most of the material is forgettable.