ARS NOVA

Don´t get me wrong. It is just my personal taste.Besides, there are some very nice and genuine unique sounds that could be a fine material for great songs if they were interested in writing ´straight´ songs, but it does not seem to be the case here. Their musical hability is beyond question, the musicians are all very skillful and the arrangements are quite demanding. So much I´ll have to hear at least some other of their works to give them a fair judgement. For now I can only recommend this album to the ones who love to hear an explicit display of great musical technique without much care for song structure or feeling. If you´re into that, jump right in!

Rating: 2,5 stars, that I´ll round up to 3, because of the terrific musicanship and some very good ideas.

Ars Nova's brand of symphonic prog in the main is very bombastic, often veering into metal territory, constantly shifting with some inventive chord structures on the five compositions. It's mainly instrumental with only the occasional vocal or spoken voices to break the musical onslaught. However I could quite happily live without the Japanese operatics that appear on closing track Salvador Syndrome.

I found myself quite enjoying Seventh Hell, particularly the opening title track which captures them at their best but the music generally comes across as a little clinical and soulless. The constantly changing nature of the compositions whilst being technically impressive does sometimes frustrate a little as an enjoyable section appears and is gone, never to heard again. This in turn leaves them fairly unmemorable, even after half a dozen plays.

Whilst I doubt I'd want the entire Ars Nova back catalogue in my collection, Seventh Hell is an album I'll enjoy coming back to from time to time when I'm in the mood. Worth checking out if you like your prog on the in your face bombastic side.

"Seventh Hell" After a maddening introduction, something akin to progressive metal ensues. The track is riddled with chugging guitar and powerful synthesizer leads. Jam packed with notes from almost every instrument, the arrangement is all over the place- frantic, chaotic, exasperating, and exhausting. Midway through, the piece completely stops, and something very different but no less sporadic takes over.

"La Venus Endormie" After the mind-boggling instrumental frenzy that came before, it's nice to have a more peaceful track, this one featuring vocals, coming from a female who can occasionally be shrill. The peace doesn't last- the band jumps back into full force progressive metal with several seemingly random sections patched in. The organ solo is the king here, though.

"Cazadora de Astos" Various synthetic instruments lead the charge on this brighter piece. Almost predictably, it becomes a migraine-inducing barrage of sounds.

"Voice of Wind" Following a bizarre opening, the band plows through a heavy guitar and bass segment, which is punctuated by irritating vocal stabs.

"Salvador Syndrome" The opening is really reminiscent of Gentle Giant. As expected, the music that follows is explosive, screaming, and unrelenting. Something I almost never care for is present here throughout- in lieu of transitions, there are several places where the music stops and then starts up again. With the weird, Japanese operatic vocal, however, my desire would be that the stops would come more often. Even the lead guitar is irritating in its screeching. The bass guitar solo is really cool, though. After yet another non-transition, there's a queer section of accordion, operatic vocals, and otherwise cabaret music. Sorry everyone, but this is worse than channel surfing on a drunken evening and trying to make a coherent story of everything on the screen...not that I've ever tried that sort of thing.

The music is quite rich. They are continuously playing with more than one line. Apart from the main keyboard, there's always at least another one doing a contrapunctual voice underneath. This makes the music rather interesting and roomy. Moreover, they change "instrumentation" (timbres) quite often, and there are no extended solos: they keep changing sections and trading phrases between different instruments, producing a very varied song layout. And the rhythm-section from Gerard is great.

The main drawback is a little uniformity of the songs, and the aforementioned lack of variation in dynamics, sufficiently compensated by the constant evolution of the music. As it happens with other Japanese groups, there's a bit too "exact" a beat, or maybe a lack of relaxation points, everything is just a bit too loud, pressing, it's difficult to describe; generally I like it, but sometimes it is a little excessive. And I think the female singer and the choruses fit better with the music than the guest male singer, who maybe overdoes a bit his dramatic role.

As ZowieZiggy says, this album is on the edge between three and four stars. I'll give them four.

In this line, they usually take influences from everything that may enhance the musical experience, normally they choose between Italian Prog with AOR leanings of ELP oriented sound with extreme pomp.

"The Goddess of Darkness" by ARS NOVA is in my opinion the peak of the style, Keiko Kumagai is a well trained keyboardist, with great dexterity in the Moog. Mellotron and piano, she is clearly influenced by the powerful sound of bands like ELP or TRACE, but adds an extra doze of brilliance and pomp, seems to have horror to silent spaces,. because she covers each instant with music and sounds.

But the band wouldn't sound the same without the rhythm section formed by Kyoko Kanazawa (Bass) and Akiko Takahashi in the drums, with whom they work as a metronome and form a power trio capable of big things.

Wanted to review each and every track, but it would take me hours and mare space than the one available, because here are so many complex characteristics in a few minutes of music, so I will choose the three songs that impressed me more.

The album starts with the sober and impressive "Morgan - The Fate Awaits Inevitable", after a delicate intro, the band morphs into a some sort of tortured ELP where the massive use of Synths will attract any Symphonic fan, it's almost unbelievable to see the fragile Keiko Kumagai hitting the keys with such fury, the song is like an Emersonian nightmare with echoes of Bartok and Janacek, of course the strong drumming enhances the effect.

The structure is amazingly complex, the changes are so radical that nobody will expect what comes next, pure strength and musical skills.

If Morgan broke schemes, "Fury - The Daughter And The Simoom After The Simoom" is even harder, this time ARS NOVA sounds closer to a formal style like in the case of PAR LINDH PROJECT, again no time for rest, the band bombards us with sounds and elaborate music from start to end, never taking the foot of fuel, seems like this band only knows to give all they have without rest.

This time some Baroque passages take the listener for surprise, and to make it harder, Kumagai makes the Hammond shout in pain blending the tortured screams with clear piano sections, and as surprisingly as it started, the song ends.

"The Gorgons - Never Look at her eyes" is a bit softer, more fluid but this doesn't mean the song is free of drama and strength, trying to describe it is futile because it's so dark mysterious and elaborate with an amazing piano and orchestration, but at the same time contradictory, few moments of calm and again all the strength they are capable of , really versatile band with an out of this world keyboardist.

I use to avoid Japanese Prog because of it's excessive eclecticism, a mistake I will make no more, this album is essential, so any rating bellow 4 stars is irrational.

Keiko Kumagai is probably this gorgeous girl on cover. She's so pretty and not at all Japanese looking here + when you consider her keyboard skills, her giving a lot of band's ideas and this erotic style her own (Android Domina, various photos), you can't help but think that's a quite weird combination. Not bad, just strange. Babel Tower on her head, bird eating a man from Bosch's famous painting (one of two I have in my room, second one is Eden by him too, so every time I see something from it, connection between this artwork and this where I see it is stronger.

5(-) stars for almost masterpiece. Well, sad truth is that there are few worse parts which does not fit me aat all in overall composition. But as depiction of Hell (don't forget about it) it's flawless.

EDIT: + 1/2 stars, because of solid state of this record, which provides original element enough (through wild ideas) to be considered as master-class.

How should the scene go, with three talented HEROINES?

In the first track Morgan, Keiko's keyboard say gracefully to us that our fate should be already formed stably and we cannot struggle away from here forever. The first few phrases may let us enter into the dark area of our mind. The synth string sounds and rumbling guitar ones are active, aggressive and so violent I feel. I can understand Keiko can 'imagine' the tune fit for her solemn and spiritual imagination about the land of the dead. Meanwhile about the tune itself, their play are completely steady and united without any blur. That is, Keiko's imagination is not fuzzy but strict and stable. Let me say, yes, the story is really the story and should go ahead without hesitating - should make clear visions in our brain. Not only by the approach of heavy rock but also of classic, they can play flexibly and make 'visible sounds' as it is said. Fury has very speedy stream of sounds and heavy riffs. Absolutely we can shout THIS IS FEMININE POWER! Strong and soulful intention of three ladies is only one - really an impressive bodyattack with strangling sounds. Forgive me but this song always reminds me they play with sweat gushing out. :-) More heavy and darker scene has come here by The Gorgons - a messenger from the hell. Well indeed Gorgon is a goddess, with an ability letting a people looking at her be a stone. But why? From The Gorgons here we can feel some tragedies. We, altered into stones, can weep with some teardrops. What weird, but graceful Goddesses they should be! Keiko's keyboard, Kyoko's bass, and Akiko's drum can shout, cry, and whisper with complex words to us. Ainsel gets started with dry and scattered piano noises. Avantgarde keyboard sounds follow and develop. Hm, some classical melodies we should have heard somewhere before...should knock our brain continually. May not be relaxed by the song - although there are much classical essense with their passion. I see, their passion itself should be suspicious - it should make us anxious fully. Kali should be suitable for the last track of this album. Again very speedy keyboard solo and heavy bass sounds can let us palpitate speedily. And painful scene should face the death with some parts just like Zarathustra by Museo Rosenbach.

No fantasy, but spiritual tragedy. Watch, not listen.

I have never hidden the fact that I am a great ELP fan. Mostly because they combine melody with experimentation and classic music....... but still quite organic music. So I am therefore the target group for ARS NOVA.

Wrong.

ARS NOVA fires off their guns with three keyboards players and a wall of plastic fantastic sound. They play fast and the music is complex. In the volleys of bombastic keyboards, they have forgotten what ELP always remembered: Organic melodies. Yes, ARS NOVA is impressive musicians and there are some good stuff here (thankfully, I do not have to give it one star). But most of this album is one large nothing. There is not much of a melody here and the ideas are pretty shallow. It is almost painful music in it's dullness. It is totally over the top music. It is a soundtrack for a violent Japanese film. It is not my cup of tea.

2 stars.

Though Japan have a wide and rich prog rock scene, Ars Nova was the first japanese prog band i ever heard anything about and the more i learned about this band more i liked it. Eventually, i found this album, Android Domina. It drew my attention not only because it is an Ars Nova album, but also because of its porn cover, where both keyboardists, Keiko Kumagai and Mika Nakajima, are wearing bondage clothing and doing a sexy pose (note: the cover of the album i have is not the one that is in PA).

When i checked the music inside the album i was both very content and discontent. I was very content because the music is very good, à lá Ars Nova: powerful dual keyboards (something that only Ars Nova, as far as i know, does) with big ELP influences (though the bass part here was made by a keyboard), but without sounding derivative nor emulative, something they have being doing since The Goddess of Darkness. Another good point here is that, for the first time, there were vocals with words in their music, something they never made before (maybe Keiko is learning more than basic english now, but who knows. . .).

However, besides the good points, there is something i just hated in this album: there were many cracks and some background hiss through the whole album. That just cannot happen these days, when technology in the mastering, mixing and recording process made fixing those inconvenient noises so easy and cheap.

Although those noises were a problem in a time where high definition is the rule, the music mostly overcame it. the highlights of this album are: Android Domina, All Hallow's Eve and Bizarro Ballo In Maschera. Actually, a big part of the cracks and hisses are in the song Android Domina.

Grade and Final Thoughts

A nice album with very good songs and a bondage pin-up cover, enough said. 3 stars, that's it.

EDIT: I have been listening to this album a lot in the past couple of months and i reached the conclusion that i have overrated this album. The production and mixing problems they have here (the hisses and cracks) are just unacceptable with our current technology, so I downgraded Android Domina from 4 stars to 3 stars.