ITZIAR

I have often returned to the sole recorded output of Basque folk group ITZIAR in the hopes that I missed some nugget the first n visits that I would somehow unearth on listen n+1. Sadly, I still hear a rather dispirited and disjointed blend of ITOIZ and ENBOR that falls short of even the middling work by those bands in the late 1970s. The singer for whom the band is named has a pleasant enough voice in a JONI MITCHELL meets NEST (BRAN, PERERIN) manner, but tries to do too much with it and falls flat, and in general songs that start off as promising acoustic numbers either go nowhere or downhill at breakneck speed. "Harri eta Herri" is the worst of the lot, horrific acid folk with lead guitar that sounds like what used to be played in the nightclubs when the Flintstones went to the seedy part of town, and a back 40 that leaves a trail of scat in its wake. While a couple of tracks are decent, like the opener, chiefly for its lovely mid point acoustic guitar and flute combo, the only entirely pleasing number is "Haizearen Gogoa", which raises the bar via brilliant vocal harmonies. It's a shame they didn't choose this tactic more often. I can't really recommend this to anyone except maybe people who have to have every Basque prog album from the post-Franco renaissance, but even then, this should be well down near the bottom of a lengthy shopping list.